"There is Simon Verstage, a warm man; he could help you in an emergency."
"He's never been the same with me since I married Matabel, his adopted daughter. He had other ideas for her, I fancy, and he is short and nasty wi' me now. I can't ask him."
"Have you then, really, no friends?"
"Not one."
"Then there must be some fault in you, Kink. A man who goes through life without making friends, and quarrels even with the horse that carries him, is not one who will leave a gap when he passes out of the world. I shall expect my money. If you see no other way of satisfying me, I must have a mortgage on your holding. I'll not press you at once—but, like Clutch, I shall want my feed of oats."
"Then," said Jonas, surlily, as he turned his hat about, and looked down into it, "I don't see no other chance of gettin the money than—"
"Than what?"
"That's my concern," retorted the Broom-Squire. "Now I'm goin' to see whether old Clutch is ready—or whether he be shammin' still."