“Done! five pounds to one. I take it.”
This sudden closing with him made the perfumer rather uneasy; but he was not to pay for three months, and so he said, “Done!” too, and went on: “What would you say if your bills were paid?”
“Not mine; Pike's.”
“Well, if Pike's were paid; and the Minories' man paid, and every single liability I have cleared off; and that Mossrose flung out of winder, and me and my emporium as free as hair?”
“You don't say so? Is Queen Anne dead? and has she left you a fortune? or what's the luck in the wind now?”
“It's better than Queen Anne, or anybody dying. What should you say to seeing in that very place where Mossrose now sits (hang him!)—seeing the FINEST HEAD OF 'AIR NOW IN EUROPE? A woman, I tell you—a slap-up lovely woman, who, I'm proud to say, will soon be called Mrs. Heglantine, and will bring me five thousand pounds to her fortune.”
“Well, Tiny, this IS good luck indeed. I say, you'll be able to do a bill or two for ME then, hay? You won't forget an old friend?”
“That I won't. I shall have a place at my board for you, Capting; and many's the time I shall 'ope to see you under that ma'ogany.”
“What will the French milliner say? She'll hang herself for despair, Eglantine.”
“Hush! not a word about 'ER. I've sown all my wild oats, I tell you. Eglantine is no longer the gay young bachelor, but the sober married man. I want a heart to share the feelings of mine. I want repose. I'm not so young as I was: I feel it.”