“I promised to come and tell you about the exam, didn’t I?”
“Eh? Oh, yes, to be sure. That was last Saturday. Upon my word, I’d quite forgotten.”
Of course Loman knew this was false; but he had to look pleasant and answer, “Well, you see, my memory was better than yours.”
“Right you are, young captain. And what about this here fifty-pound dicky-bird you’ve been after?”
“The Nightingale?” said Loman. “Oh, it’s all right, of course; but the fact is, I forgot when I promised you the money now, that of course they—”
“Oh, come now, none of your gammon,” said Mr Cripps, angrily; “a promise is a promise, and I expect young swells as makes them to keep them, mind that.”
“Oh, of course I’ll keep them, Cripps. What I was saying was that they don’t pay you the money till the beginning of each year.”
Loman omitted to mention, as he had omitted to mention all along, that young gentlemen who win scholarships do not, as a rule, have the money they win put into their hands to do as they like with. But this was a trifling slip of the memory, of course!
“I don’t care when they pay you your money! All I know is I must have mine now, my young dandy. Next week the time’s up.”
“But, Cripps, how can I pay you unless I’ve got the money?”