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Updated: June 1, 2025
"I would not care to sell out for twenty thousand!" yelled the overwrought Mr Pilkington. "I wouldn't sell out for a million! You're a swindler! You want to rob me! You're a crook!" "Yes, yes," assented Mr Goble gently. "But, all joking aside, suppose I was to go up to twenty-five thousand . . . ?" He twined his fingers lovingly in the slack of Mr Pilkington's coat. "Come now! You're a good kid!
The steps of Mr Pilkington's Japanese servant crossing the hall came faintly to the sitting-room. "Mr Pilkington in?" Otis Pilkington motioned pleadingly to Jill. "Don't go!" he urged. "It's only a man I know. He has probably come to remind me that I am dining with him tonight. He won't stay a minute. Please don't go." Jill sat down. She had no intention of going now.
Otis Pilkington suddenly gave tongue. He broke in on them with a loud noise that was half a snort and half a yell. Stunned by the information that it was Jill who had bought his share in the piece, Mr Pilkington's mind had recovered slowly and then had begun to work with a quite unusual rapidity. During the preceding conversation he had been doing some tense thinking, and now he saw all.
She hated hurting people's feelings, and, though she read Mr Pilkington's character accurately enough to know that time would heal any anguish which she might cause him, she had had no doubt that the temperamental surface of that long young man, when he succeeded in getting her alone, was going to be badly bruised. And it had fallen out just as she had expected.
You can generally tell by the look of a guy, and, if you ask me, friend Pilkington's got the license in hith pocket and the ring all ordered and everything." "Pilkington!" cried Jill, aghast.
Among such bitternesses surely most bitter are the bills for things of which the fruition has ceased for worn-out finery, for withered flowers, for drunk wine. Pilkington's boots, were they never so treble soled, could not endure for ever, and Miss Joliffe's eyes followed unconsciously under the table to where a vertical fissure showed the lining white at the side of either boot.
The only ray in the darkness which brooded on his indomitable soul was the thought that it might still be possible, by getting hold of Mr Pilkington before the notices appeared and shaking his head sadly and talking about the misleading hopes which young authors so often draw from an enthusiastic first-night reception and impressing upon him that first-night receptions do not deceive your expert who has been fifteen years in the show-business and mentioning gloomily that he had heard a coupla the critics roastin' the show to beat the band . . . by doing all these things, it might still be possible to depress Mr Pilkington's young enthusiasm and induce him to sell his share at a sacrifice price to a great-hearted friend who didn't think the thing would run a week but was willing to buy as a sporting speculation, because he thought Mr Pilkington a good kid and after all these shows that flop in New York sometimes have a chance on the road.
Assisted by his reluctantly closing mouth and double eye-glass it inspired confidence, giving to Mr. Pilkington's face an expression of extreme openness and candour. He was proud of his eye-glass too. He considered that it made him look like a man of science or of letters. But it didn't. It did much better for him than that.
Coarseness in Dicky Pilkington's eyes sat brilliant and unashamed. "Would you? So would I. P'raps it's wot I don't see in him." Now subtlety was the last thing Dicky expected from Poppy, and it aroused suspicion. Whatever Poppy's instructions were she had evidently exceeded them. Poppy read his thoughts with accuracy. "I only did what you told me.
By many such ingenious substitutions he effected so prodigious a saving that three-fifths or more of his salary went into the tobacco-jar and thence into Dicky Pilkington's pocket. He rejoiced to see it go, so completely had he subdued the lust of spending, so ardently embraced the life of poverty; if it were poverty to live on a pound a week.
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