“Come, come,” rejoined Gates with a laugh; “don’t poke fun in that way. The truth is, I get on quite as well without as with the certificate. I transact business now for Mr. Everard Preston: you understand?”
“Perfectly. I now remember where I have seen you. But how is it your dress has become so suddenly changed? A few weeks ago, it was nothing like so magnificent?”
“True, my dear boy, true: quite right. I saw you observed that. First-rate, isn’t it? Every article genuine. Bond and Regent Street, I assure you,” he added, scanning himself complacently over. I nodded approval, and he went on—“You see I have had a windfall; a piece of remarkable luck; and so I thought I would escape out of the dingy, smoky village, and air myself for a few days in the Channel.”
“A delightful time of the year for such a purpose truly. Rather say you came to improve your acquaintance with the lady yonder, who, I dare say, will not prove ultimately inflexible?”
“Perhaps you are right—a little at least you may be, about the edges. But here we are; what do you take—port?”
“That as soon as anything else.”
Mr. Gates was, as he said, constitutionally thirsty, and although it was still early in the day, drank with great relish and industry. As he grew flushed and rosy, and I therefore imagined communicative, I said, “Well, now, tell me who and what is that lady?”
The reply was a significant compound gesture, comprising a wink of his left eye and the tap of a fore-finger upon the right side of his nose. I waited, but the pantomimic action remained uninterpreted by words.
“Not rich apparently?”
“Poor as Job.”