The latter part of the proposal is so directly to the purpose that Mr. Jobling says with emotion, “Guppy, my trump, your fist!” Mr. Guppy presents it, saying, “Jobling, my boy, there it is!” Mr. Jobling returns, “Guppy, we have been pals now for some years!” Mr. Guppy replies, “Jobling, we have.”
They then shake hands, and Mr. Jobling adds in a feeling manner, “Thank you, Guppy, I don’t know but what I will take another glass for old acquaintance sake.”
“Krook’s last lodger died there,” observes Mr. Guppy in an incidental way.
“Did he though!” says Mr. Jobling.
“There was a verdict. Accidental death. You don’t mind that?”
“No,” says Mr. Jobling, “I don’t mind it; but he might as well have died somewhere else. It’s devilish odd that he need go and die at my place!” Mr. Jobling quite resents this liberty, several times returning to it with such remarks as, “There are places enough to die in, I should think!” or, “He wouldn’t have liked my dying at his place, I dare say!”
However, the compact being virtually made, Mr. Guppy proposes to dispatch the trusty Smallweed to ascertain if Mr. Krook is at home, as in that case they may complete the negotiation without delay. Mr. Jobling approving, Smallweed puts himself under the tall hat and conveys it out of the dining-rooms in the Guppy manner. He soon returns with the intelligence that Mr. Krook is at home and that he has seen him through the shop-door, sitting in the back premises, sleeping “like one o’clock.”
“Then I’ll pay,” says Mr. Guppy, “and we’ll go and see him. Small, what will it be?”