“Why, for want of money. That’s the only possible tight place at my age. At yours there are many. It is only a temporary tightness, of course.” He opened the soda-water and drank off the full tumbler at a gulp. “Temporary. Till the supplies arrive.”
“The supplies?” Leonard put the question in a nasty, cold, suspicious manner, which would have changed smiles into blankness in a more sensitive person. But uncle Fred was by no means sensitive or thin-skinned. He was also so much accustomed to temporary tightness that the incongruity of tightness with his pretensions of prosperity had not occurred to him.
“Supplies?” he replied. “Supplies from Australia, of course.”
“I thought that you were a partner in a large and prosperous concern.”
“Quite true—quite true. Barlow Brothers is both large and prosperous.”
“In that case it is easy for you to draw upon your bankers or the agents for your bank or some friends in the City. You go into the City every day, I believe. Your position must be well known. In other words, I mistrust this temporary tightness.”
“Mistrust? And from you? Really, Leonard——”
“I put things together. I find in you none of the habits of a responsible merchant. I know that everywhere character is essential for commercial success——”
“Character? What should I be without character?”
“You come home as the successful merchant: you drink: you talk as if you were a debauched youngster about town: your anecdotes are scandalous: your tastes are low. Those are the outward signs.”