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You may say what you like about Titus Blackhurst I know there's a good many that don't like him but he's a real good sort. I'm sure he's the best Sunday School superintendent we ever had. Then there's Mr Clayton-Vernon, and Alderman Sutton, and young Henry Mynors and " "And Eardley Brothers they're giving a hundred apiece," put in Lovatt, glancing at Randolph Sneyd.
What with floodings, and flaws in the seam, that shaft alone is running me into a loss of six pound a week at this very moment, and has been for weeks." "Dear me!" exclaimed Mr Blackhurst, sympathetically. "Yes! Six pound a week! And that isn't all" he had entirely forgotten the immediate object of Mr Blackhurst's visit "that isn't all. I've got a big lawsuit coming on with the railway company.
"Glad to see you, Mr Blackhurst," he began, a little awkwardly. "You know, I suppose, what I've come for, Mr Peake," said the old man, in that rich, deep, oily voice of which Mrs Lovatt, in one of those graphic phrases that came to her sometimes, had once remarked that it must have been "well basted in the cooking." "I suppose I do," Peake answered diffidently.
He approached him, meaning to put a hand on his shoulder, but dared not do so. Inarticulate sounds escaped from his throat, and then at last he burst out: "Stop that, stop that! I canna stand it. Here, I'll give ye a cheque for a hundred. I'll write it now." When Mr Blackhurst had departed he rang for a brandy-and-soda, and then, after an interval, returned to the drawing-room.
Peake jumped like a shot rabbit, reddening to the neck with stupefaction, excruciating sheepishness and annoyance. Never in the whole course of his life had he been caught in such an ineffable predicament. He strode to and fro in futile speechless rage and shame. The situation was intolerable. He felt that at no matter what cost he must get Titus Blackhurst up from his knees.
He smiled meditatively at Mrs Lovatt's question, and turned it aside with another. "What about this organ?" "It's going to cost nine hundred pounds," continued Mrs Lovatt, "and Titus Blackhurst has arranged it all. It was built for a hall in Birmingham, but the manufacturers have somehow got it on their hands. Young Titus the organist has been over to see it, and he says it's a bargain.
I say what I mean and I mean what I say; and so, as I've quite made up my mind, I let you know straight off. I can't do it. I simply can't do it." "Of course if you put it that way, if you can't " "I do put it that way, Mr Blackhurst," Peake continued quickly, warming himself into eloquence as he perceived the most effective line to pursue. "I admire your open-handedness.
The affair was all arranged as quick as you please at the Trustees' meeting last Monday. Titus Blackhurst said he would give a hundred pounds if eight others would do the same within a fortnight it must be settled at once. As Enoch said to me afterwards, it seemed, as soon as Mr Blackhurst had made his speech, that we must have that organ.
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