'What is your other alternative?' asked Trampleasure, sullenly.
'Mv second proposal is this. You have promised me five thousand pounds along with Orange.'
'I know I have, and I shall be ready to pay it when you are married.'
'My good father-in-law prospective, that does not quite satisfy me. Of course I do not question your honour and your intention to discharge what you propose. But speculation, above all, speculation in mines, superlatively such a speculation as Ophir, is risky. I do not wish to risk my chance of getting that five thousand pounds (and connubial felicity) on the continuance of the Ophirian gold yield.'
'You don't suppose I will pay you down the money now, before you are married.'
'No, I do not, and I do not want to run the chance of getting married, only to discover that the five thousand pounds has been sunk in Ophir, and is only available in the shape of paper on Ophir, or only to discover that Ophir has collapsed like a pricked bladder the day before.'
'What, then, do you want?' asked Trampleasure, very angrily, rubbing his knuckles with the palm of his hand in his irritation and impatience.
'What I want is, that you should lodge the money now in the hands of a third party, say of Mr. John Herring. If I fail to fulfil my part of the contract within a given time, say on the day already fixed for the wedding, or seven days after, I forfeit it and it returns to you. When I am married to Orange, then Herring is empowered to hand the money over to me.'
'Upon my word. Captain Trecarrel, of all audacious and exacting men I ever came across. you are the most audacious and exacting. And what if I refuse this condition also?'
'Then I remain in bed.'