West looked at his wounded hand, which still clutched the knife, but saying, "Cut myself by accident," tossed it into a corner and washed the blood from his fingers.
Fallowby, fat and lazy, watched him without comment, but Trent, half divining how things had turned, walked over to Fallowby smiling.
"I've a bone to pick with you!" he said.
"Where is it? I'm hungry," replied Fallowby with affected eagerness, but Trent, frowning, told him to listen.
"How much did I advance you a week ago?"
"Three hundred and eighty francs," replied the other, with a squirm of contrition.
"Where is it?"
Fallowby began a series of intricate explanations, which were soon cut short by Trent.
"I know; you blew it in;—you always blow it in. I don't care a rap what you did before the siege: I know you are rich and have a right to dispose of your money as you wish to, and I also know that, generally speaking, it is none of my business. But now it is my business, as I have to supply the funds until you get some more, which you won't until the siege is ended one way or another. I wish to share what I have, but I won't see it thrown out of the window. Oh, yes, of course I know you will reimburse me, but that isn't the question; and, anyway, it's the opinion of your friends, old man, that you will not be worse off for a little abstinence from fleshly pleasures. You are positively a freak in this famine-cursed city of skeletons!"
"I am rather stout," he admitted.