“I'm insured for two hundred and seventy.”
“Insurance policies is no criterion, though I don't say——”
“Oh, damn your longwindedness! You've made your pickings out of me and the other tenants. Why, you talked of retiring and buying a public-house the other day. Give a straight answer to a straight question.”
“Fifty,” said Mr. Beeton, without a moment's hesitation.
“Double it; or I'll break up half my sticks and burn the rest.”
He felt his way to a bookstand that supported a pile of sketch-books, and wrenched out one of the mahogany pillars.
“That's sinful, sir,” said the housekeeper, alarmed.
“It's my own. One hundred or——”
“One hundred it is. It'll cost me three and six to get that there pilaster mended.”
“I thought so. What an out and out swindler you must have been to spring that price at once!”