“I used to be in a secondhand bookseller’s. Now, I suppose I’m right in assuming that you could, if necessary, place your hands on a certain sum of money?”
“I could.”
“About how much shall we say?” asked Mr. Doubleday engagingly.
Erb counted the money in his pocket.
“Twelve shillings and ninepence.”
“I appreciate the humour of that remark,” said Mr. Doubleday in his husky voice, “but I want to talk business. I’m a plain, straightforward man, and what I want to know is simply this. Is there a five-pound note flying about?”
“If there was,” said Erb, “I should catch it.”
“There’s the benefit money,” said the other, looking at himself curiously in the hollow of a spoon, “the benefit money to borrow from, and Yes, yes! I know what you are going to say and I quite agree with you. I think you’re most decidedly in the right. Far be it from me to suggest for a single moment—”
“I’m getting tired of you,” interrupted Erb suddenly. “I wish you’d take your hook and go away. Your face worries me, and your talk makes my head ache.”
“Then it’s time I came to close quarters. Listen to me!” Mr. Doubleday leaned his elbows on the table, and, bending forward, shielded his mouth with his hand that words might not go astray. “This is the situation. A man, a young man, takes up a certain high-minded attitude in regard to a certain firm; gets hauled up for libel; gets fined. His society comes to his rescue. Newspapers have paragraphs applauding him. So far, so good! Fine thing to show up, as far as he can, dangerous trades. But he forgets or he pretends to forget, doesn’t matter which—that not so long ago he, this same young man, went all over the country, making speeches in favour of a syndicate that called itself something or other—”