FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   225   226   227   228   229   230   231   232   233   234   235   236   237   238   239   240   241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249  
250   251   252   253   254   255   256   257   258   259   260   261   262   263   264   265   266   267   268   269   270   271   272   273   274   >>   >|  
money was all right! What a cur you are!" "That's right;--abuse me." "Well, it was horrid. Didn't I tell you that it must necessarily injure me with the house? How are two fellows to get on together unless they can put some trust in each other? Even if I did run you into a difficulty, do you really think I'm ruffian enough to tell you that the money was there if it were untrue?" Sexty looked like a cur and felt like a cur, as he was being thus abused. He was not angry with his friend for calling him bad names, but only anxious to excuse himself. "I was out of sorts," he said, "and so d----d hippish I didn't know what I was about." "Brandy-and-soda!" suggested Lopez. "Perhaps a little of that;--though, by Jove, it isn't often I do that kind of thing. I don't know a fellow who works harder for his wife and children than I do. But when one sees such things all round one,--a fellow utterly smashed here who had a string of hunters yesterday, and another fellow buying a house in Piccadilly and pulling it down because it isn't big enough, who was contented with a little box at Hornsey last summer, one doesn't quite know how to keep one's legs." "If you want to learn a lesson look at the two men, and see where the difference lies. The one has had some heart about him, and the other has been a coward." Parker scratched his head, balanced himself on the hind legs of his stool, and tacitly acknowledged the truth of all that his enterprising friend said to him. "Has old Wharton come down well?" at last he asked. "I have never said a word to old Wharton about money," Lopez replied,--"except as to the cost of this election I was telling you of." "And he wouldn't do anything in that?" "He doesn't approve of the thing itself. I don't doubt but that the old gentleman and I shall understand each other before long." "You've got the length of his foot." "But I don't mean to drive him. I can get along without that. He's an old man, and he can't take his money along with him when he goes the great journey." "There's a brother, Lopez,--isn't there?" "Yes,--there's a brother; but Wharton has enough for two; and if he were to put either out of his will it wouldn't be my wife. Old men don't like parting with their money, and he's like other old men. If it were not so I shouldn't bother myself coming into the city at all." "Has he enough for that, Lopez?" "I suppose he's worth a quarter of a million." "B
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   225   226   227   228   229   230   231   232   233   234   235   236   237   238   239   240   241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249  
250   251   252   253   254   255   256   257   258   259   260   261   262   263   264   265   266   267   268   269   270   271   272   273   274   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Wharton

 

fellow

 

friend

 

wouldn

 

brother

 

approve

 

replied

 

election

 
telling
 
coward

Parker

 

scratched

 
difference
 

balanced

 

enterprising

 

acknowledged

 

tacitly

 
understand
 

parting

 
shouldn

bother

 
quarter
 

million

 

suppose

 

coming

 

journey

 

gentleman

 

length

 

Brandy

 

suggested


hippish
 

Perhaps

 
difficulty
 

calling

 

untrue

 

looked

 

abused

 

excuse

 

ruffian

 

anxious


harder

 

Hornsey

 

necessarily

 

summer

 

injure

 

contented

 
lesson
 

horrid

 

pulling

 

Piccadilly