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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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869 a good one, and was as negotiable as money, but which turned out you know how. Just as we should have come upon him, he died insolvent. Ah! it went very nigh to ruin me, that loss did!’ ‘Go on with your scheme,’ said Ralph. ‘It’s of no use raising the cry of our trade just now; there’s nobody to hear us!’ ‘It’s always as well to talk that way,’ returned old Arthur, with a chuckle, ‘whether there’s anybody to hear us or not. Practice makes perfect, you know. Now, if I offer myself to Bray as his son- in-law, upon one simple condition that the moment I am fast married he shall be quietly released, and have an allowance to live just t’other side the water like a gentleman (he can’t live long, for I have asked his doctor, and he declares that his complaint is one of the Heart and it is impossible), and if all the advantages of this condition are properly stated and dwelt upon to him, do you think he could resist me? And if he could not resist me, do you think his daughter could resist him? Shouldn’t I have her Mrs Arthur Gride--pretty Mrs Arthur Gride--a tit-bit--a dainty chick-- shouldn’t I have her Mrs Arthur Gride in a week, a month, a day-- any time I chose to name?’ ‘Go on,’ said Ralph, nodding his head deliberately, and speaking in a tone whose studied coldness presented a strange contrast to the rapturous squeak to which his friend had gradually mounted. ‘Go on. You didn’t come here to ask me that.’ ‘Oh dear, how you talk!’ cried old Arthur, edging himself closer still to Ralph. ‘Of course I didn’t, I don’t pretend I did! I came to ask what you would take from me, if I prospered with the father, for this debt of yours. Five shillings in the pound, six and eightpence, ten shillings? I would go as far as ten for such a friend as you, we have always been on such good terms, but you won’t be |
