"Oh, I dare say!" interrupted Huckaback, smiling incredulously, and chinking some money in his trousers pocket. Titmouse heard it, and (as the phrase is) his teeth watered; and he immediately swore such a tremendous oath as I dare not set down in writing, that if Huckaback would that evening lend him ten shillings, Titmouse would give him one hundred pounds out of the very first moneys he got from the estate.
"Ten shillings is a slapping slice out of my little salary—I shall have, by George, to go without lots of things I'd intended getting; it's really worth ten pounds to me, just now."
"Why, dear Hucky! 'pon my life, 't is worth a hundred to me! Mrs. Squallop will sell me out, bag and baggage, if I don't give her something to-morrow!"
"Well, if I really thought—hem!—would you mind giving me, now, a bit of black and white for it—just (as one might say) to show you was in earnest?"
"I'll do anything you like; only let me feel the ten shillings in my fingers!"
"Well, no sooner said than done, if you're a man of your word," said Huckaback, in a trice producing a bit of paper, and a pen and ink. "So, only just for the fun of it; but—Lord! what stuff!—I'm only bargaining for a hundred pounds of moonshine. Ha, ha! I shall never see the color of your money, not I; so I may as well say two hundred when I'm about it, as one hundred"——
"Why, hem! Two hundred, Huck, is rather a large figure; one hundred's odds enough, I'm sure!" quoth Titmouse, meekly.
"P'r'aps, Tit, you forget the licking you gave me the other day," said Huckaback, with sudden sternness. "Suppose I was to go to an attorney, and get the law of you, what a sight of damages I should have—three hundred pounds at least!"
Titmouse appeared even yet hesitating.
"Well, then!" said Huckaback, flinging down his pen, "suppose I have them damages yet"——