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Updated: June 10, 2025
He must not represent that he was what he was not, in case he had afterwards to justify his actions publicly, always a difficult thing, if you were not careful! At that moment there came into his mind a question Bob Pillin had asked the other night. "By the way, you can't borrow on a settlement, can you? Isn't there generally some clause against it?"
Through Bob Pillin, on whom he sometimes dwelt in connection with his younger daughter, he knew that old Pillin and old Heythorp had been friends for thirty years and more. That, to an astute mind, suggested something behind this sale. The thought had already occurred to him when he read his copy of the report.
Good Lord! how he jumped if you asked him a plain question. The chap was as nervous as a guinea-fowl! "Here are the figures for the last four years. I think you'll agree that I couldn't ask less than seventy thousand." Through the smoke of his cigar old Heythorp had digested those figures slowly, Joe Pillin feeling his teeth and sucking lozenges the while; then he said: "Sixty thousand!
He specified the curate, a tee-totaller, because he had two daughters, and males and females must be paired, but he intended to pack him off after dinner to the drawing-room to discuss parish matters while he and Bob Pillin sat over their wine. What he expected to get out of the young man he did not as yet know. On the day of the dinner, before departing for the office, he had gone to his cellar.
"Ah!" he said enigmatically, "these lady novelists! Does she make any money by them?" Bob Pillin knew that to make money by writing meant success, but that not to make money by writing was artistic, and implied that you had private means, which perhaps was even more distinguished. And he said: "Oh! she has private means, I know." Mr. Ventnor reached for the Madeira.
Joe Pillin, brooding over the fire, said: "This meeting d'you think they mean to have it? D'you think this man really knows? If my name gets into the newspapers " but encountering his old friend's deep little eyes, he stopped. "So you advise me to get off to-morrow, then?" Old Heythorp nodded. "Your lunch is served, sir." Joe Pillin started violently, and rose. "Well, good-bye, Sylvanus-good-bye!
The secretary re-read from the beginning; and as each sentence fell from his tongue, he thought: 'How good that is! 'That's very clear! 'A neat touch! 'This is getting them. It seemed to him a pity they could not know it was all his composition. When at last he came to the Pillin sale he paused for a second.
Ventnor gave his chair two little twiddles before he said "Well, you won't get it." Bob Pillin remained for a moment taken aback; then he muttered resolutely: "It's not the conduct of a gentleman." Every man has his illusions, and no man likes them disturbed. The gingery tint underlying Mr. Ventnor's colouring overlaid it; even the whites of his eyes grew red. "Oh!" he said; "indeed!
He's one of my creditors." Joe Pillin stared at him afresh. "You always had such nerve," he said yearningly. "Do you ever wake up between two and four? I do and everything's black." "Put a good stiff nightcap on, my boy, before going to bed." "Yes; I sometimes wish I was less temperate. But I couldn't stand it. I'm told your doctor forbids you alcohol." "He does. That's why I drink it."
"You know my young friend, Mr. Robert Pillin, I think." The lady, whose bulk and bloom struck him to the point of admiration, murmured in a full, sweet drawl: "Oh! Ye-es. Are you from Messrs. Scrivens?" With the swift reflection: 'As I thought! Mr. Ventnor answered: "Er not exactly. I am a solicitor though; came just to ask about a certain settlement that Mr.
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