'Well?' For he stopped here and looked about the room with an air of contempt.
'A pleasant room,' he said, going back, 'but is it the room which your father's son should have for a lodging? Rush-bottomed chairs: no carpet ... dear me, Mr. William, it is well to be a philosopher. However, we shall change all that.'
I waited for him to go on without further interruption.
'In a word, Sir, I am the happy ambassador—privileged if ever there was one—charged to bring about reconciliation and cousinly friendship.' Again he overdid it. 'Your cousin sent me, in a word, to propose that you should sell him your chances of inheritance. That is why I am here. I say, Mr. William, that you may if you please sell him your chance of the inheritance. He proposes to offer you £3,000 down—£3,000, I say—the enormous sum of three—thousand—pounds—for your bare chance of succeeding. Well, Sir? What do you say to this amazing, this astounding piece of generosity?'
I said nothing. Only suddenly there returned to my mind the words I had overheard in the outer counting-house.
'We will make him sell his reversion.'
What connection had these words with me? There was no proof of any connection: no proof except that jumping of the wits which wants no proof.
'With £3,000,' Mr. Probus continued, 'you can take a more convenient residence of your own—here, or elsewhere: near the Dog and Duck, or further removed: you can live where you please: with the interest, which would amount to £150 a year at least, and what you make by your honest labour, you will be, for one of your profession, rich. It will be a noble inheritance for your children. Why, Sir, you are a made man!'
He threw himself back in his chair and puffed his cheeks with the satisfaction that naturally follows on the making of a man.
I was tempted: I saw before me a life of comparative ease: with £150 a year there would be little or no anxiety for the future.