"I have not always been in Arcadia Street, and I shall not always remain here," said Gilbert. "As the world understands it, I am rather a rich man, and the fifty pounds is quite easily to be found. I am living in Arcadia Street for a whim, if you must know; that is part of our secret understanding, Mr. Meggison. Come, now—is it a bargain?"
Daniel Meggison looked at the young man for only one moment longer; then he seemed to leap at him, and to catch his hand between both his own. "A bargain, sir?" he exclaimed, in a rapture. "Of course it's a bargain—and in a noble cause, sir. Fifty pounds, did you say? It's a fortune!"
"A fortune into which you have very strangely come," Gilbert reminded him. "Don't say a word now; I can see your daughter coming straight through the house towards us. Come round and see me to-morrow, and we'll work out together this game of make-believe which you are to play."
"I'll play it well until the end!" exclaimed Meggison, shaking his hand again. "A great game of make-believe! Splendid notion!"
CHAPTER VI
SCHEMERS AND DREAMERS
BESSIE MEGGISON had no suspicion; for it was scarcely possible, in the first place, that anyone should be interesting himself on her behalf. She was glad to think that her father and Mr. Byfield had suddenly grown to be to all appearances such excellent friends; although even in that there was a lurking dread, lest the wily Daniel Meggison should exercise that "tapping" process upon his new acquaintance. For the rest, it simplified matters, and made it easier to carry on that innocent intercourse with Gilbert.
The plotters meanwhile may be said to have watched each other's movements with suspicion and distrust. Daniel Meggison was all for immediate action; wanted to feel his fingers grasping that good money, and putting it to such uses as only he, from a long experience, could accurately name. Bessie should, of course, have a share in the good things that were coming; but only, quite properly, after her father had been satisfied; quixotic notions were not to be encouraged where a rich young man absolutely offered to toss fifty pounds over a garden wall in Islington. Gilbert Byfield, on the other hand, already began to doubt whether after all he had not been a little precipitate; began to suggest this, and to demand that, in the way of security. Not that he regretted his action so far as Bessie was concerned; a single glance at her white face was sufficient to speed him to the undertaking; but he doubted the instrument he had been compelled to choose.
Daniel Meggison's idea of a rest and a holiday for his daughter, when it came to the actual point of expression, seemed to consist in a vague notion of driving about London all day long, with large cigars for his own consumption, and new clothes, and an occasional visit with some ceremony to a saloon bar; which was not of course quite the idea that had been in the mind of Mr. Gilbert Byfield. The wily old man had already drawn sundry sovereigns, on account of that imaginary fortune, and still nothing had been done, when one evening he appeared in Gilbert Byfield's rooms with a face of mystery, and with round eyes that had a frightened look in them. He closed the door, and carefully removed his dingy skull cap; combed out the last threads of its silk tassel between his fingers; and looked up and spoke.