‘But what sort of terms did you come to?’ Eleanor asked.
Slimm briefly related the result of his mission, and its unexpected and desirable consummation, to the mutual astonishment of his listeners; indeed, when he came to review the circumstances of the case, he was somewhat astonished at his own success.
‘Wonderful!’ exclaimed Mr Carver, gazing with intense admiration at his enemy. ‘I could not have believed it possible for one man single-handed to have accomplished so much.—My good friend, do I really understand that in any case we get half the money; and in one case, all but five thousand pounds?’
‘Precisely; and you get the agreement drawn up, and we will get away to Eastwood the day after to-morrow. I declare I feel as pleased as a schoolboy who has found the apple at hide-and-seek. I feel as if I was getting young again.’
‘Then you think it is really settled?’ Edgar asked, with a sigh of pleasure and relief.
‘Not the slightest doubt of it,’ said the American promptly. ‘And I think I may be allowed to observe, that of all the strange things I ever came across throughout my long and checkered career, this is about the strangest.’
‘It certainly beats anything I ever remember,’ said Mr Carver with a buoyant air.—‘What do you say, Bates?’
‘Well, sir,’ Mr Bates admitted, ‘there certainly are some points about it one does not generally encounter in the ordinary run of business.’
CHAPTER XIV.
When the poet, in the pursuit of his fancy, eulogised the stately homes of England, he must have forgotten or totally ignored a class of dwelling dearer to my mind than all the marble halls the taste or vanity of man ever designed. The Duke of Stilton doubtless prefers his ancestral home, with its towers and turrets, its capacious stables—which, by-the-bye, seem the first consideration in the Brobdingnagian erections of the hour; he may wander with an air of pride through the Raphael hall and the Teniers gallery or the Cuyp drawing-room. For me, he can have his art treasures, his Carrara marbles, his priceless Wedgwood, his Dresden. He may enjoy his drawing-rooms—blue, red, and every colour in the universe. He may dine in the bosom of his family on every delicacy a cordon bleu can devise to tickle the palate and stimulate the appetite, with its accompaniment of rose-patterned silver and dainty china. Let him luxuriate in it all, if he will.