Part 20 (2/2)
Tresco went to the door.
”I'll get it if I can,” he said. ”Stay here till I come back, and make yourself at home. You may rely on my best endeavours.” He put on his hat, and went into the street.
Mr. Crookenden sat in his office. He was a tubby man, with eyes like boiled gooseberries. No one could guess from his face what manner of man he might be, whether generous or mean, hot-tempered or good-humoured, because all those marks which are supposed to delineate character were in him obliterated by adipose tissue. You had to take him as you found him. But for the rest he was a merchant who owned a lucrative business and a few small blunt-nosed steamers that traded along the coasts adjacent to Timber Town.
As he sat in his office, glancing over the invoices of the wrecked _Mersey Witch_, and trying to compute the difference between the value of the cargo and the amount of its insurance, there was a knock at the door, and Benjamin Tresco entered.
”How d'e do, Tresco? Take a chair,” said the man of business. ”The little matter of your rent, eh? That's right; pay your way, Tresco, and fortune will simply chase you. That's been _my_ experience.”
”Then I can only say, sir, it ain't bin mine.”
”But, Tresco, the reason of that is because you're so long-winded.
Getting money from you is like drawing your eye-teeth. But, come, come; you're improving, you're getting accustomed to paying punctually. That's a great thing, a very great thing.”
”To-day,” said the goldsmith, with the most deferential manner of which he was capable, ”I have _not_ come to pay.”
”Mr. Tresco!”
”But to get _you_ to pay. I want a little additional loan.”
”Impossible, absolutely impossible, Tresco.”
”Owing to losses over an unfortunate investment, I find myself in immediate need of 150. If that amount is not forthcoming, I fear my brilliant future will become clouded and your rent will remain unpaid indefinitely.”
The fat man laughed wheezily.
”That's very good,” he said. ”You borrow from me to pay my rent. A very original idea, Tresco; but don't you think it would be as well as to borrow from some one else--Varnhagen, for instance?”
”The Jews, Mr. Crookenden; I always try to avoid the Jews. To go to the Jews means to go to the dogs. Keep me from the hands of the Jews, I beg.”
”But how would you propose to repay me?”
”By a.s.siduous application to business, sir.”
”Indeed. Then what have you been doing all this while?”
”Suffering from bad luck.” The ghost of a smile flitted across Benjamin's face as he spoke.
”But Varnhagen is simply swimming in money. He would gladly oblige you.”
”He did once, at something like 60 per cent. If I remember rightly, you took over the liability.”
”Did I, indeed? Do you know anything of Varnhagen's business?”
”No more than I do of the Devil's.”
”You don't seem to like the firm of Varnhagen and Co.”
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