“The gentleman, R. W. ,” said Mrs. Wilfer, “proposes to take your apartments by the quarter. A quarter’s notice on either side.”
“Shall I mention, sir,” insinuated the landlord, expecting it to be received as a matter of course, “the form of a reference?”
“I think,” returned the gentleman, after a pause, “that a reference is not necessary; neither, to say the truth, is it convenient, for I am a stranger in London. I require no reference from you, and perhaps, therefore, you will require none from me. That will be fair on both sides. Indeed, I show the greater confidence of the two, for I will pay in advance whatever you please, and I am going to trust my furniture here. Whereas, if you were in embarrassed circumstances—this is merely supposititious—”
Conscience causing R. Wilfer to colour, Mrs. Wilfer, from a corner (she always got into stately corners) came to the rescue with a deep-toned “Per‑fectly.”
“—Why then I—might lose it.”
“Well!” observed R. Wilfer, cheerfully, “money and goods are certainly the best of references.”
“Do you think they are the best, pa?” asked Miss Bella, in a low voice, and without looking over her shoulder as she warmed her foot on the fender.
“Among the best, my dear.”
“I should have thought, myself, it was so easy to add the usual kind of one,” said Bella, with a toss of her curls.