The man looked unruffled across the table at me. He pushed a paper a little farther from him, and said without any trace of emotion:
"Will you sign that receipt at the bottom, if you please?"
I sat down and signed it, but I would rather have jabbed a pen between his close-set lips to give him a taste of his own ink. Then I sat quiet and watched him count the gold, placing it all in neat little pillars before him. When it was finished, he said:
"Will you check the amount?"
"Is that gold mine?" I asked him.
"It is," he replied.
So I rose up without more ado and shovelled it into my pockets, and he put the receipt into the drawer after reading it over carefully, and arched his eyebrows without saying anything when he saw me pocket the coins uncounted.
"I wish you good afternoon," said I.
"I have to detain you one moment longer," he replied. "I have it on the most trustworthy information that the Earl of Westport is already aware of your intention to proceed to the country estate alleged to be owned by him. Your outgoings and incomings are watched, and I have to inform you that unless you proceed to Rye with extreme caution there is likelihood that you may be waylaid, and perchance violence offered to you."
"In that case I will reap a few more swords; but you need not fear, I shall not trouble you with them."