"Believe me, gentlemen, I receive this with pleasure," said he, scribbling off a receipt with pen and ink brought by a servant.
"Yes, I know how pleased you are," replied Moore, politely. Then taking the acknowledgment of liquidation from the baronet, he carefully folded it before depositing it in his wallet.
"Some day, Sir Percival, when the time comes for us to make a settlement, I shall ask you for my receipt," he said in a tone that there was no mistaking.
"When that time comes, Mr. Moore, you will find me as eager and prompt as yourself," replied Sir Percival.
Moore looked his enemy calmly in the face and read there a courage fully the equal of his own.
"Egad, Sir Percival," said he, "for once I believe you. No doubt you will find it in your heart to release the bailiffs from further attendance this evening?"
"Your suggestion is a good one, Mr. Moore," answered the baronet, smothering his rage. "Carry to Mr. Dyke my thanks and add one more to the list of the many kindnesses for which I am already indebted to you, sir."
Moore and Sheridan lost but little time in the exchange of social amenities with their discomfited host. The younger man sought the card-room, bent on forgetting, for a while at least, the slavery into which he had sold his pen; the elder picked up the temporarily abandoned thread of his intoxication without further delay.
Chapter Twenty-One
THE POET FALLS FROM FAVOR