“He is going to take a letter to the Borough for me,” said Hawkesbury, bestowing a meaning glance on me.
“I’m not going to take it,” said I.
“What?” exclaimed Hawkesbury, in sudden fury.
“I’m not going to take it. I’m going to stay where I am.”
“You know the consequences?” he muttered between his teeth.
“Yes.”
“You know what it means for your friend Smith?”
“Yes.”
He looked perplexed, as well he might. That I should defy him in the face of his threat against Jack Smith was the last thing he had expected, “Batchelor,” said he, altering his tone suddenly to one of entreaty, “I have very important business to arrange with Masham. Would you mind leaving us for half an hour? I would not ask you, only I shall get into awful trouble if I can’t talk to him alone for a little.”
It passed my comprehension how, after threatening me with Jack’s ruin, he should now turn round with such an appeal. And he put on such a beseeching manner that in the midst of my wrath I half pitied him. However, I was not to be moved. “If you want to see him so privately as all that,” said I, “take him up to the sample-room. No one will disturb you there.”