"I don't think you want to implicate any one, but you are hot-headed and difficult to deal with, and very irrational into the bargain. And, what is worse, I must say you are a little suspicious. In all this matter I have harassed myself greatly to oblige you, and in return I have got more kicks than halfpence."
"Did not you give this bill to Tozer—the bill which he now holds?"
"In the first place, he does not hold it; and, in the next place, I did not give it to him. These things pass through scores of hands before they reach the man who makes the application for payment."
"And who came to me the other day?"
"That, I take it, was Tom Tozer, a brother of our Tozer's."
"Then he holds the bill, for I saw it with him."
"Wait a moment; that is very likely. I sent you word that you would have to pay for taking it up. Of course they don't abandon those sort of things without some consideration."
"Ten pounds, you said," observed Mark.
"Ten or twenty; some such sum as that. But you were hardly so soft as to suppose that the man would ask for such a sum. Of course he would demand the full payment. There is the bill, Lord Lufton," and Sowerby, producing a document, handed it across the table to his lordship. "I gave five-and-twenty pounds for it this morning."
Lord Lufton took the paper and looked at it. "Yes," said he, "that's the bill. What am I to do with it now?"
"Put it with the family archives," said Sowerby—"or behind the fire, just which you please."
"And is this the last of them? Can no other be brought up?"
"You know better than I do what paper you may have put your hand to. I know of no other. At the last renewal, that was the only outstanding bill of which I was aware."
"And you have paid five-and-twenty pounds for it?"
"I have. Only that you have been in such a tantrum about it, and would have made such a noise this afternoon if I had not brought it, I might have had it for fifteen or twenty. In three or four days they would have taken fifteen."
"The odd ten pounds does not signify, and I'll pay you
