I'm not dependent on her, and I don't
want to marry her daughter."

"It will simply end in her demanding to have her money back again."

"And how will she get it?" said Dobbs Broughton. "I haven't a doubt
in life but she'd take it to-morrow if she could put her hands upon
it. And then, after a bit, when she began to find that she didn't
like four per cent., she'd bring it back again. But nobody can do
business after such a fashion as that. For the last three years she's
drawn close upon two thousand a year for less than eighteen thousand
pounds. When a woman wants to do that, she can't have her money in
her pocket every Monday morning."

"But you've done better than that yourself, Dobbs."

"Of course I have. And who has made the connexion; and who has done
the work? I suppose she doesn't think that I'm to have all the sweat
and that she is to have all the profit?"

"If you talk of work, Dobbs, it is I that have done the most of it."
This Mr. Musselboro said in a very serious voice, and with a look of
much reproach.

"And you've been paid for what you've done. Come, Mussy, you'd better
not turn against me. You'll never get your change out of that. Even
if you marry the daughter, that won't give you the mother's money.
She'll stick to every shilling of it till she dies; and she'd take
it with her then, if she knew how." Having said this, he got up from
his chair, put his little book into his pocket, and walked out of
the office. He pushed his way across the court, which was more than
ordinarily crowded with the implements of Burton and Bangles' trade,
and as he passed under the covered way he encountered at the entrance
an old woman getting out of a cab. The old woman was, of course,
Mother Van, as her partner, Mr. Dobbs Broughton, irreverently called
her. "Mrs. Van Siever, how d'ye do? Let me give you a hand. Fare from
South Kensington? I always give the fellows three shillings."

"You don't mean to tell me it's six miles!" And she tendered a florin
to the man.

"Can't take that, ma'am," said the cabman.

"Can't take it! But you must take it. Broughton, just get a
policeman, will you?" Dobbs Broughton satisfied the driver out of his
own pocket, and the cab was driven away. "What did you give him?"
said Mrs. Van Siever.

"Just another sixpence. There never is a policeman anywhere about
here."

"It'll be out of your own pocket, then," said Mrs. Van. "But you're
not going away?"

"I must be at Capel Court b