deacon had anywhere at his lawful command.
He did not, as we have seen, attempt to characterise it. He simply declined to entertain it. Of course, if Chloë intended to marry this Dunkle, marry Dunkle she would; he didn't flatter himself that he could do anything whatever to stop her, the time for that sort of thing having long gone by for fathers. He was, therefore, ready to give his consent to this marriage, crazy though he felt it to be, if Dunkle would in return agree to figure before the eyes of the world as the author of "Trixie." But this seven hundred a year he did not propose to disgorge. That was a bit too much altogether. Rather than that, he felt he would be willing to consign his novel to oblivion. Yes. But he trusted that it wouldn't come to that. Dunkle was not the only hard-up scribbler in London.
