“Come, come, Mr. Travers,” said Dick, “a joke's a joke; only don't put so grave a face on you when you ask such a question. However, as you say yourself, now to business—about these leases.”
“I trust,” continued Travers, “that I am both an honest man and a gentleman, yet I expect a bribe for every lease.”
“Well, then,” replied Henderson, “it is not generally supposed that either an honest man or a gentleman—”
“Would take a bribe?—eh?”
“Well, d—n it, no; not exactly that either; but come, let us understand each other. If you will be wilful on it, why a wilful man, they say, must have his way. Bribery, however—rank bribery—is a—”
“Crime to which neither an honest man nor a gentleman would stoop. You see I anticipate what you are about to say; you despise bribery, Mr. Henderson?”
“Sir,” replied the other, rather warmly, “I trust that I am a gentleman and an honest man, too.”
“But still, a wilful man, Mr. Henderson must have his way, you know. Well, of course, you are a gentleman and an honest man.”
He then rose, and touching the bell, said to the servant who answered it:
“Send in the man named Darby Skinadre.”