host’s friend, ‘and proud to make your acquaintance. Jones, you might just attend to that case, else the mud will be all over it. The study is it we’re to sit in?’ – this to Mr Davenant – ‘A fine room, sir. Never look out of the window without thinking so. Come, Jones, let us not keep the gentlemen waiting.’
No prince could have swept into Scroop Hall more grandly than Mr Silas. He saw a little mark on the lintel as he swept inside and winked at it and rubbed it with his finger. A cat looked up from a chair in the hall as he passed and he stopped and patted it very affably. He looked at the pictures in their frames and the pike that Mr Davenant’s father had pulled out of the Wash in the year of Trafalgar with equal sympathy. Mr Glenister wished that he was back in his library at Glenister Hall with a book in his lap watching the rain fall over the apple trees in his garden.
Mr Davenant’s study was not much used. There was a big japanned desk and a bookcase or two and a map of the county which Mr Silas went and looked at very keenly while further chairs were being procured and a maid brought in four sherry glasses on a tray: the decanter was already out on Mr Davenant’s desk. It was so dark that lamps were called for, and Mr Silas’s shadow burned black and monstrous off the wall, mocking the quaint little body that sat beneath it. Just now he was looking at some pieces of paper held in a wafer of card, which the clerk had presented to him. Mr Davenant sat behind his desk looking as if he wished the earth to swallow him up.
‘Now, sir,’ Mr Silas began, when he had seated himself in his chair, drunk half a glass of sherry, eaten a biscuit and bullied his clerk a little more, ‘you’ll have received our letter in advance of this visit, and you’ll know how things stand. Very bad they are.’
‘I’ve no doubt they are as you say.’
‘Oh, indeed they are. Jones, just give Mr Davenant that schedule, would you? Bills you see, sir’ – this remark seemed to be addressed to Mr Glenister – ‘are very well providing they are renewed. But what if they aren’t, eh?’
Mr Glenister suggested that there were some bills not worth renewing.
‘That’s it, sir. That’s precisely it. But there are some folk, sir, as will press for payment even when they know they are not going to get it. Just for the mischief of the thing. Now, Mr Davenant sir, will you take a look at these figures and tell me if they’re correct?’
‘I am sure that everything is as you say it is.’
‘A trusting nature, sir, is a thing to be applauded,’ Mr Silas remarked. The clerk, laying down more paper at his side, looked at him with admiring eyes. ‘But it can be took too far, if you catch my meaning.’
‘I’m not sure I do catch it,’ said Mr Glenister. He was thoroughly annoyed, not merely by the thought that he would have been better off in his library, or by Mr Silas’s familiarity, but by what he imagined to be his friend’s quiescence. He told himself that Mr Davenant was being unreasonably timid, and that a bold stroke or two would see the attorney back in his gig. Seeing that his friend still sat quite silent in his chair, his eye barely moving over the schedule that Mr Silas had given him, he went on:
‘May I be frank, Mr Silas?’
‘As frank as you like, sir. Frankness is something we always prize in a profession like ours, isn’t that right, Jones?’ Mr Jones simpered horribly.
‘If I am to give my friend the benefit of my advice, based on the information you have given him, then it is necessary that I should speak to him alone. Perhaps you would excuse us for a few moments?’
‘As long as you wish, sir. Half an hour if it suits you. Mr Jones and I will do very well here, I daresay.’
There was a passage on the left-hand side of Mr Davenant’s study door that led to a second, outer door and thence into the stable yard. Here Mr Glenister led his friend, almost laughing as he did
No prince could have swept into Scroop Hall more grandly than Mr Silas. He saw a little mark on the lintel as he swept inside and winked at it and rubbed it with his finger. A cat looked up from a chair in the hall as he passed and he stopped and patted it very affably. He looked at the pictures in their frames and the pike that Mr Davenant’s father had pulled out of the Wash in the year of Trafalgar with equal sympathy. Mr Glenister wished that he was back in his library at Glenister Hall with a book in his lap watching the rain fall over the apple trees in his garden.
Mr Davenant’s study was not much used. There was a big japanned desk and a bookcase or two and a map of the county which Mr Silas went and looked at very keenly while further chairs were being procured and a maid brought in four sherry glasses on a tray: the decanter was already out on Mr Davenant’s desk. It was so dark that lamps were called for, and Mr Silas’s shadow burned black and monstrous off the wall, mocking the quaint little body that sat beneath it. Just now he was looking at some pieces of paper held in a wafer of card, which the clerk had presented to him. Mr Davenant sat behind his desk looking as if he wished the earth to swallow him up.
‘Now, sir,’ Mr Silas began, when he had seated himself in his chair, drunk half a glass of sherry, eaten a biscuit and bullied his clerk a little more, ‘you’ll have received our letter in advance of this visit, and you’ll know how things stand. Very bad they are.’
‘I’ve no doubt they are as you say.’
‘Oh, indeed they are. Jones, just give Mr Davenant that schedule, would you? Bills you see, sir’ – this remark seemed to be addressed to Mr Glenister – ‘are very well providing they are renewed. But what if they aren’t, eh?’
Mr Glenister suggested that there were some bills not worth renewing.
‘That’s it, sir. That’s precisely it. But there are some folk, sir, as will press for payment even when they know they are not going to get it. Just for the mischief of the thing. Now, Mr Davenant sir, will you take a look at these figures and tell me if they’re correct?’
‘I am sure that everything is as you say it is.’
‘A trusting nature, sir, is a thing to be applauded,’ Mr Silas remarked. The clerk, laying down more paper at his side, looked at him with admiring eyes. ‘But it can be took too far, if you catch my meaning.’
‘I’m not sure I do catch it,’ said Mr Glenister. He was thoroughly annoyed, not merely by the thought that he would have been better off in his library, or by Mr Silas’s familiarity, but by what he imagined to be his friend’s quiescence. He told himself that Mr Davenant was being unreasonably timid, and that a bold stroke or two would see the attorney back in his gig. Seeing that his friend still sat quite silent in his chair, his eye barely moving over the schedule that Mr Silas had given him, he went on:
‘May I be frank, Mr Silas?’
‘As frank as you like, sir. Frankness is something we always prize in a profession like ours, isn’t that right, Jones?’ Mr Jones simpered horribly.
‘If I am to give my friend the benefit of my advice, based on the information you have given him, then it is necessary that I should speak to him alone. Perhaps you would excuse us for a few moments?’
‘As long as you wish, sir. Half an hour if it suits you. Mr Jones and I will do very well here, I daresay.’
There was a passage on the left-hand side of Mr Davenant’s study door that led to a second, outer door and thence into the stable yard. Here Mr Glenister led his friend, almost laughing as he did
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