“You must excuse my saying it,” said Bramber; “but--if these are all--your affairs are in a very unsatisfactory condition.”
“Unsatisfactory? oh, pshaw! Of course, I have other resources; there’s the Brimpts forest of oaks. There’s--oh, lots; winkles and cockles, tea and coffee not entered.”
“Sixpence a head; over twenty, fourpence ha’penny,” said Walter Bramber drily.
“Oh, lots--lots of other things. I haven’t entered all.”
“I sincerely hope it is so.”
“It is so, on my word.”
“Because--you seem to me to be losing seriously on every count.”
“Losing? You don’t know creditor from debtor account. That comes of education; it is never of use. Nothing like business for teaching a man. I don’t believe in your book-learning.”
“I’ll come again to-morrow and go more carefully into the accounts.”
“Oh, thank you, not necessary. It is clear to me you do not understand my system--and mistake sides.” Pasco became red and angry. “Look here, Mr. Schoolmaster, let me give you a word. You don’t belong to the labourers--you won’t be able to make friends of them. You don’t belong to the gentry; there are none here--so you need not think of their society. You don’t belong to the middle class--you are not a farmer, or a tradesman, or a merchant; so they will have nothing to do with you. You make my accounts all right, and the balance on the right side; give up your foolish book-keeping as learned at college, and set my accounts right by common sense, and I’ll see what I can do to get you taken up by some respectable people. And, one thing more. Don’t go contradicting men of property, and saying that there was no cock-fighting at Waterloo, because there was; and people don’t like contradictions. When I broke open the belfry door that the ringers might give Mr. Puddicombe a peal, I let the world see I wasn’t going to be priest-ridden; and we are not going to be schoolmaster-ridden neither, and told our accounts are wrong, and that Waterloo, where the cock-fight was, is not in England.”