Page:Over the Sliprails - 1900.djvu/33



“Perhaps so; he’s a suspicious fool, but I made a bargain with him about our last cheque. He can hang on to the stuff, and I can’t. If I’d been on my own I’d have blued it a week ago. Tell you what I’ll do— we’ll call our share (Smith’s and mine) twenty quid. You take the odd fiver for your trouble.”

“That looks fair enough. We’ll call it twenty guineas to you and your mate. We’ll want him, you know.”

In his own and Smith’s room Steelman thoughtfully counted twenty-one sovereigns on the toilet-table cover, and left them there in a pile.

He stretched himself, scratched behind his ear, and blinked at the money abstractedly. Then he asked, as if the thought just occurred to him: “By the way, Smith, do you see those yellow boys?”

Smith saw. He had been sitting on the bed with a studiously vacant expression. It was Smith’s policy not to seem, except by request, to take any interest in, or, in fact, to be aware of anything unusual that Steelman might be doing—from patching his pants to reading poetry.

“There’s twenty-one sovereigns there!” remarked Steelman casually.

“Yes?”

“Ten of ’em’s yours.”

“Thank yer, Steely.”

“And,” added Steelman, solemnly and grimly, “if you get taken down for ’em, or lose ’em out of the top-hole in your pocket, or spend so much as a shilling in riotous living, I’ll stoush you, Smith.”

Smith didn’t seem interested. They sat on the