“I say, old chap!” interposed Fledgeby, “I hope you mind what you do tell ’em?”

“Sir, I tell them no more than I am about to repeat. When I tell them, ‘I cannot promise this, I cannot answer for the other, I must see my principal, I have not the money, I am a poor man and it does not rest with me,’ they are so unbelieving and so impatient, that they sometimes curse me in Jehovah’s name.”

“That’s deuced good, that is!” said Fascination Fledgeby.

“And at other times they say, ‘Can it never be done without these tricks, Mr. Riah? Come, come, Mr. Riah, we know the arts of your people’⁠—my people!⁠—‘If the money is to be lent, fetch it, fetch it; if it is not to be lent, keep it and say so.’ They never believe me.”