'Oh, Grollo, you——I tell you, I've any amount to do with it; it will go no way.'
'On the contrary, it will go nearly all the way. For the remaining five francs I'll wait.'
'I've got to get my evening clothes out of pawn; I'm going out to dinner on Monday.'
'Well, you must go as you are, then.'
Tommy looked at him resentfully.
'Well, half, then—forty?'
'I shall come with you when you fetch it,' the creditor repeated, good-temperedly stubborn.
'Oh, well——' Tommy shrugged his shoulders resignedly. 'Come, then; I shall fetch it now. Coming, Betty?'
'No.'
Betty was talking to Gina Lunelli. Gina was a fine young woman, rather beautiful, with black curly hair, and an immense amount of experience, on and off the music-hall stage, for her twenty-seven years. She was a great friend of the Crevequers; it rather entertained her that anyone should be so silly and so young. All the men she knew made love to her as a matter of course—or possibly she made love to them; it, anyhow, between the two, was invariably made. Tommy Crevequer's love-making was to both an excellent joke; to Betty also, for they were nearly always a three-cornered party. Gina and Betty went out now and stood in the street and talked; or rather Gina talked, and Betty listened and rather often laughed; it took very little to amuse the Crevequers. Soon Tommy came back; he carried a parcel; his face was rather gloomy.