igar.

"Why does she leave me without pocket-money, then? Damme, I must have
money," cried out the Baronet. "Oh, Am----, oh, Altamont, I'm the most
miserable beggar alive."

"You'd like a chap to lend you a twenty-pound note, wouldn't you now?"
the other asked.

"If you would, I'd be grateful to you for ever--for ever, my dearest
friend," cried Clavering.

"How much would you give? Will you give a fifty-pound bill, at six
months, for half down and half in plate?" asked Altamont.

"Yes, I would, so help me----, and pay it on the day," screamed
Clavering. "I'll make it payable at my banker's: I'll do anything you
like."

"Well, I was only chaffing you. I'll give you twenty pound."

"You said a pony," interposed Clavering; "my dear fellow, you said a
pony, and I'll be eternally obliged to you; and I'll not take it as a
gift--only as a loan, and pay you back in six months. I take my oath, I
will."

"Well--well--there's the money, Sir Francis Clavering. I ain't a bad
fellow. When I've money in my pocket, dammy, I spend it like a man.
Here's five-and-twenty for you. Don't be losing it at the hells now.
Don't be making a fool of yourself. Go down to Clavering Park, and it'll
keep you ever so long. You needn't 'ave butchers' meat: there's pigs,
I dare say, on the premises: and you can shoot rabbits for dinner, you
know, every day till the game comes in. Besides, the neighbours will ask
you about to dinner, you know, sometimes: for you are a Baronet, though
you have outrun the constable. And you've got this comfort, that I'm off
your shoulders for a good bit to come--p'raps this two years--if I don't
play; and I don't intend to touch the confounded black and red: and by
that time my lady, as you call her--Jimmy, I used to say--will have
come round again; and you'll be ready for me, you know, and come down
handsomely to yours truly."

At this juncture of their conversation Strong returned, nor did the
Baronet care much about prolonging the talk, having got the money:
and he made his way from Shepherd's Inn, and went home and bullied
his servant in a manner so unusually brisk and insolent that the man
concluded his master must have pawned some more of the house furniture,
or, at any rate, have come into possession of some ready money.

* * * * * *

"And yet I've looked over the house, Morgan, and I don't thin he
has took any more of the things," Sir Francis's valet said to Major
Pendenn