“I shouldn’t mind now and then paying you a trifle, giving you a meal, and favouring you with my support--I am churchwarden, and consequently on the committee of the National School. Me and the bishop, and the archdeacon and rector, and Whiteaway as well. I mean, I’ll stand at your back, if you will oblige me now and then, and hold your tongue.”
“I will do anything I can to oblige you,” said Bramber. “And as to holding my tongue, what is it you desire of me?”
“Merely to help me with my accounts. My time is so occupied, and I do business in so many ways, that my books get somewhat puzzling--I mean to a man who is taken up with business.”
“I am entirely at your service.”
“But--you understand--I don’t want my affairs talked about. People say I have plenty of money, that I’m a man who picks it up everywhere; but I don’t desire that they should know how much I have, and what my speculations are, and what they bring in.”
“I can hold my tongue.”
“Would you look at my books now?”
“Certainly.”
Accordingly, Walter Bramber re-entered the house, and was given the books in a private sitting-room, and worked away at them for a couple of hours. The confusion was great: Pepperill might have had a genius for business, but this was not manifest in his books. Presently Pasco came in.
“Well,” said he, “make ’em out, eh?”