“Aye! Now, come, come, you know, Mr. Smallweed,” urges the trooper, constraining himself to speak as smoothly and confidentially as he can, holding the open letter in one hand and resting the broad knuckles of the other on his thigh, “a good lot of money has passed between us, and we are face to face at the present moment, and are both well aware of the understanding there has always been. I am prepared to do the usual thing which I have done regularly and to keep this matter going. I never got a letter like this from you before, and I have been a little put about by it this morning, because here’s my friend Matthew Bagnet, who, you know, had none of the money⁠—”

“I don’t know it, you know,” says the old man quietly.

“Why, confound you⁠—it, I mean⁠—I tell you so, don’t I?”

“Oh, yes, you tell me so,” returns Grandfather Smallweed. “But I don’t know it.”