"I dare say you can guess the occasion of my visit, Mr. Gammon?"
["There goes our bill!—Whew!—What now?" thought Gammon.]
Mr. Gammon bowed, with an anxious, expectant air.
"I allude to the question yet remaining between your client, Mr. Titmouse, and me—the mesne profits"——
"I feared—I expected as much! It gave me infinite anxiety, as soon as I found you were approaching the subject!"
"To me it is really a matter of life and death, Mr. Gammon. It is one pressing me on, almost to the very verge of despair!"
"Do not, Mr. Aubrey," said Gammon, in a tone and with a look which touched the heart of his agitated companion, "magnify the mischief. Don't—I beg—imagine your position to be one so hopeless! What is there to stand in the way of an amicable adjustment of these claims? If I had my way, Mr. Aubrey—and if I thought I should not be acting the part of the unjust steward in Scripture—I would write sixty thousand farthings for sixty thousand pounds!"
"You have named the sum for which I believe I am legally liable to Mr. Titmouse," said Mr. Aubrey, with forced composure; "it is, however, a sum as completely out of my power to pay or secure—or even a quarter of it—as to give him one of the stars."
"I am aware, Mr. Aubrey, that you must have had many calls upon you, which must have temporarily crippled your resources"——
"Temporarily!" echoed Mr. Aubrey, with a sickening smile.