"Made worth your while?" repeated the other.
"Certainly," said the unblushing Mr. Stiles. "She's not a bad-looking woman—for her age—and it's a snug little business."
Mr. Burton, suppressing his choler, affected to ponder. "If 'arf a sovereign—" he said, at last.
"Half a fiddlestick!" said the other, impatiently. "I want ten pounds. You've just drawn your pension, and, besides, you've been a saving man all your life."
"Ten pounds?" gasped the other. "D'ye think I've got a gold-mine in the back garden?"
Mr. Stiles leaned back in his chair and crossed his feet. "I don't go for a penny less," he said, firmly. "Ten pounds and my ticket back. If you call me any more o' those names I'll make it twelve."
"And what am I to explain to Mrs. Dutton?" demanded Mr. Burton, after a quarter of an hour's altercation.
"Anything you like," said his generous friend. "Tell her I'm engaged to my cousin, and our marriage keeps being put off and off on account of my eccentric behaviour. And you can say that that was caused by a splinter of a shell striking my head. Tell any lies you like; I shall never turn up again to contradict them. If she tries to find out things about the admiral, remind her that she promised to keep his visit here secret."
For over an hour Mr. Burton sat weighing the advantages and disadvantages of this proposal, and then—Mr. Stiles refusing to seal the bargain without—shook hands upon it and went off to bed in a state of mind hovering between homicide and lunacy.
He was up in good time next morning, and, returning the shortest possible answers to the remarks of Mr. Stiles, who was in excellent feather, went with him to the railway station to be certain of his departure.