“Well!” said Eugene, on one side of the fire, “I feel tolerably comfortable. I hope the upholsterer may do the same.”

“Why shouldn’t he?” asked Lightwood, from the other side of the fire.

“To be sure,” pursued Eugene, reflecting, “he is not in the secret of our pecuniary affairs, so perhaps he may be in an easy frame of mind.”

“We shall pay him,” said Mortimer.

“Shall we, really?” returned Eugene, indolently surprised. “You don’t say so!”

“I mean to pay him, Eugene, for my part,” said Mortimer, in a slightly injured tone.

“Ah! I mean to pay him too,” retorted Eugene. “But then I mean so much that I⁠—that I don’t mean.”

“Don’t mean?”