"What do you say, deary?" he inquired fondly; "will you go?--I believe, sir, your proposal will prove a very acceptable one. You will go, won't you, Fleda?"
Fleda would very much rather not! But she was always exceedingly afraid of hurting people's feelings; she could not bear that Mr. Carleton should think she disliked to go with him, so she answered yes, in her usual sober manner.
Just then the door opened and a man unceremoniously walked in, his entrance immediately following a little sullen knock that had made a mockery of asking permission. An ill-looking man, in the worst sense; his face being a mixture of cunning, meanness, and insolence. He shut the door and came with a slow leisurely step into the middle of the room without speaking a word. Mr. Carleton saw the blank change in Fleda's face. She knew him.
"Do you wish to see me, Mr. McGowan?" said Mr. Ringgan, not without something of the same change.
"I guess I ha'n't come here for nothing," was the gruff retort.
"Wouldn't another time answer as well?"
"I don't mean to find you here another time," said the man chuckling,--"I have given you notice to quit, and now I have come to tell you you'll clear out. I ain't a going to be kept out of my property for ever. If I can't get my money from you, Elzevir Ringgan, I'll see you don't get no more of it in your hands."
"Very well, sir," said the old gentleman;--"You have said all that is necessary."
"You have got to hear a little more, though," returned the other, "I've an idea that there's a satisfaction in speaking one's mind. I'll have that much out of you! Mr. Ringgan, a man hadn't ought to make an agreement to pay what he doesn't mean to pay, and what he has made an agreement to pay he ought to meet and be up to, if he sold his soul for it! You call yourself a Christian, do you, to stay in another man's house, month after month, when you know you ha'n't got the means to give him the rent for it! That's what I call stealing, and it's what I'd live in the County House before I'd demean myself to do I and so ought you."
"Well, well! neighbour," said Mr. Ringgan, with patient dignity,--"it's no use calling names. You know as well as I do how all this came about. I hoped to be able to pay you, but I haven't been able to make it out, without having more time."