Having thus relieved his noble mind, he collected the legs of the Turkish trousers, straightened himself on his knees, and called out to Riah in the next room, “Halloa, you sir!” At sight of the old man reentering with a gentleness monstrously in contrast with the character he had given him, Mr. Fledgeby was so tickled again, that he exclaimed, laughing, “Good! Good! Upon my soul it is uncommon good!”
“Now, old ’un,” proceeded Fledgeby, when he had had his laugh out, “you’ll buy up these lots that I mark with my pencil—there’s a tick there, and a tick there, and a tick there—and I wager twopence you’ll afterwards go on squeezing those Christians like the Jew you are. Now, next you’ll want a cheque—or you’ll say you want it, though you’ve capital enough somewhere, if one only knew where, but you’d be peppered and salted and grilled on a gridiron before you’d own to it—and that cheque I’ll write.”
When he had unlocked a drawer and taken a key from it to open another drawer, in which was another key that opened another drawer, in which was another key that opened another drawer, in which was the cheque book; and when he had written the cheque; and when, reversing the key and drawer process, he had placed his cheque book in safety again; he beckoned the old man, with the folded cheque, to come and take it.
“Old ’un,” said Fledgeby, when the Jew had put it in his pocketbook, and was putting that in the breast of his outer garment; “so much at present for my affairs. Now a word about affairs that are not exactly mine. Where is she?”
With his hand not yet withdrawn from the breast of his garment, Riah started and paused.
“Oho!” said Fledgeby. “Didn’t expect it! Where have you hidden her?”