‘Then why the divil don’t ye?’ asked Blake. ‘You’re very fond o’ talking about your gratitude, and you hold out fine promises, but what do ye do?’
‘It seems to me,’ returned the other, ‘that I’ve done a good deal.’
‘And it seems to me,’ exclaimed Blake, banging the table to emphasize the personal pronoun, ‘that ye do damn’d little. I tell ye, Dick Conseltine, it’s not for nothing that I’m going to suffer the torments of an aching conscience!’
‘Your aching conscience,’ said Conseltine, with a scarcely perceptible sneer, ‘has been fairly well salved so far. Is it money that you want?’
‘Bedad it is, then!’ cried the other. ‘I haven’t the price of a glass in the wide world.’
‘Well,’ said his fellow conspirator, ‘I’m willing to do what I can, in reason.’
‘In reason!’ repeated Blake. ‘Your notions of what’s reasonable and mine may not agree. Look here, now, what d’ye say to two hundred pounds?’
‘Two hundred pounds!’ cried Conseltine, with well-acted amazement. ‘Oh, come, come, Blake!’
‘Come, come!’ echoed Blake. ‘’Tis you that has to come—I’ve gone far enough along the road to hell; I’ll go no farther unless I’m paid for it. I want two hundred pounds to-morrow, and I’ll have it, or know the reason why!’
‘I can’t do it, Blake,’ cried Conseltine.