On a certain morning Mr Broughton and Mr Musselboro were sitting together in the office which has been described. They were in Mr Broughton's room, and occupied each arm-chair on the different sides of the fire. Mr Musselboro was sitting close to the table, on which a ledger was open before him, and he had a pen and ink before him, as though he had been at work. Dobbs Broughton had a small betting-book in his hand, and was seated with his feet up against the side of the fire-place. Both men wore their hats, and the aspect of the room was not the aspect of a place of business. They had been silent for some minutes when Broughton took his cigar-case out of his pocket, and nibbled off the end of a cigar, preparatory to lighting it.
'You had better not smoke here this morning, Dobbs,' said Musselboro.
'Why shouldn't I smoke in my own room?'
'Because she'll be here just now.'
'What do I care? If you think I'm going to be afraid of Mother Van, you're mistaken. Let come what may, I'm not going to live under her thumb.' So he lighted his cigar.
'All right,' said Musselboro, and he took up his pen and went to work at his book.
'What is she coming her for this morning,' asked Broughton.
'To look after her money. What should she come for?'
'She gets her interest. I don't suppose there's better paid money in the City.'
'She hasn't got what was coming to her at Christmas yet.'
'And this is February. What would she have? She had better put her dirty money into the three per cents, if she is frightened at having to wait a week or two.'
'Can she have it today?'
'What, the whole of it? Of course she can't. You know that as well as I do. She can have four hundred pounds, if she wants it. But seeing all she gets out of the concern, she has no right to press for it in that way. She is the ----old usurer I ever came across in my life.'
'Of course she likes her money.'
'Likes her money! By George she does; her own and anybody else's that she can get hold of. For a downright leech, recommend me always to a woman. When a woman does go in for it, she is much more thorough than any man.' Then Broughton turned over the little pages of his book, and Musselboro pondered over the big pages of his book, and there was silence for a quarter of an hour.
'There's something about nine hundred and fifteen pounds due to her,' said Musselboro.
'I daresay there is.'
'It would be a very good thing to let her have it if you've got it. The whole of it this morning, I mean.'
'If! Yes, if!' said Broughton.
'I know there's more than that at the bank.'
'And I'm to draw out every shilling that there is! I'll see Mother Van ---- further first. She can have 500 pounds if she likes it--and the rest in a fortnight. Or she can have my note-of-hand for it all at fourteen days.'
'She won't like that at all,' said Musselboro.
'Then she must lump it. I'm not going to bother myself about her. I've pretty nearly as much money in it as she has, and we're in a boat together. If she comes here bothering, you'd better tell her so.'
'You'll see her yourself?'
'Not unless she comes within the next ten minutes. I must go down to the court. I said I'd be there by twelve. I've got somebody I want to see.'
'I'd stay if I were you.'
'Why should I stay for her? If she thinks that I'm going to make myself her clerk, she's mistaken. It may be all very well for you, Mussy, but it won't do for me. I'm not dependent on her, and I don't want to marry her daughter.'
'It will simply end in her demanding to have her money back again.'
'And how will she get it?' said Dobbs Broughton. 'I haven't a doubt in life but she'd take it tomorrow if she could put her hands upon it. And then, after a bit, when she began to find that she didn't like four per cent, she'd bring it back again. But nobody can do business after such a fashion as that. For the last three years she's drawn close upon two thousand a year for less than eighteen thousand pounds. When a woman wants to do that, she can't have her money in her pocket every Monday morning.'
'But you've done better than that yourself, Dobbs.'
'Of course I have. And who has made the connexions; and who has done the work? I suppose she doesn't think that I'm to have all the sweat and that she is to have all the profit?'
'If you talk of work, Dobbs, it is I that have done the most of it.'
This Mr Musselboro said in a very serious voice, and with a look of much reproach.
'And you've been paid for what you've done. Come, Mussy, you'd better not turn against me. You'll never get your change out of that. Even if you marry the daughter, that won't give you the mother's money. She'll stick to every shilling of it till she dies; and she'd take it with her then, if she knew how.' Having said this, he got up from his chair, put his little book into his pocket, and walked out of the office. He pushed his way across the court, which was more than ordinarily crowded with the implements of Burton and Bangles' trade, and as he passed under the covered way he encountered at the entrance an old woman getting out of a cab. The old woman was, of course, Mother Van, as her partner, Mr Dobbs Broughton irreverently called her. 'Mrs Van Siever, how d'ye do? Let me give you a hand. Fare from South Kensington? I always give the fellow three shillings.'
'You don't mean to tell me it's six miles!' And she tendered a florin to the man.
'Can't take that, ma'am,' said the cabman.
'Can't take it! But you must take it. Broughton, just get a policeman, will you?' Dobbs Broughton satisfied the driver out of his own pocket, and the cab was driven away. 'What did you give him?' said Mrs Van Siever.
'Just another sixpence. There never is a policeman anywhere about here.'
'It'll be out of your own pocket, then,' said Mrs Van. 'But you're not going away?'
'I must be at Capel Court by half-past twelve;--I must, indeed. If it wasn't real business, I'd stay.'
'I told Musselboro, I should be here.'