Page:The Specimen Case.djvu/180

Rh "Oh, sir," she exclaimed, as soon as she saw him. "What do you think? Jim says now that he's thinking of going to London. Do, do stop him!"

"My dear young lady, your brother seems to be a person of well-developed determination, tempered by a rather questionable commercial morality," he replied testily. "How on earth am I to stop him?"

"It's all through that wretched old money I know," she continued wildly. "A letter came this morning and now he says that he will go, and I know that he will be led astray and ruined in that wicked place, because he is really so simple. Oh, sir, buy them and then he needn't go."

"Well, I've done my little best, I must say," exclaimed Mr. Lester.

"Yes, indeed," she replied quickly. "He must have gone to the Green Man after leaving you, for he was quite talkative when he came back. He told me that you had offered him six hundred pounds."

"Five hundred," corrected the gentleman.

"Was it, sir? He must have got the idea of six hundred somehow: it seemed quite fixed in his mind. He said that he meant to have a thousand pounds yet, and he didn't care whether you gave it or someone else."

"A thousand pounds!" cried Mr. Lester, really much relieved to know the worst at last. "Oh, ridiculous, preposterous, unheard-of! No one would give it, eh?"

"No, indeed," agreed the maiden. "I don't think that all the old money in the world would be worth that. It's just a big number that he has got into his head."

"It's grotesque," fumed the dealer. "I don't mind telling you, my dear, as it's no good now, that seven-hundred-and-fifty was the limit I was prepared to go to. And that would have been a wildly generous offer."