"Possibly, madam, possibly. I admit that there is some slight room for alteration, perhaps for improvement. I have not followed the fashions very attentively of late. The state of my finances did not allow of my doing so."
"Mr. Flicker will send you a check to-morrow."
"I shall be greatly obliged to Mr. Flicker."
"What a pity it is that you threw your chances to the dogs in the way you did when a young man."
"What a pity it is that my cousin Charles, your good son, madam, could not see his way to advance me the three thousand pounds which was all I needed at that time to save me from destruction. But he buttoned his breeches pocket--saving your ladyship's presence--and allowed me to go headlong to the deuce."
"You forget, sir, that you had had five hundred pounds from him only six months previously."
"I forget nothing. Three thousand pounds would have been my salvation. I did not have the three thousand pounds, nor three thousand pence, and you see the result before you to-day."
"Charles was building and planting at the time, as I well remember, and the sum was a much larger one than he could spare."
"So the building and the planting went on, and Cousin Jack was obliged to fly like a thief in the night. It was the young fool's own fault, and it was only right that he should suffer. So ridiculous of him, wasn't it, to think that because he and Charley had been schoolfellows and like brothers for years, he could now ask Charley to pull him through his troubles? I've often laughed since to think what a young greenhorn he must have been. I'll warrant you he knows the world better by this time."
The countess's head was beginning to shake worse than ever. Flicker made a sign to the earl, and the latter rose. "Good-morning, Aunt Barbara," he said; "shake hands with me for my mother's sake if you won't for my own."