[The Three Clerks by Anthony Trollope]@TWC D-Link book
The Three Clerks

CHAPTER XIX
4/19

Now look here----' 'Let me get up, and we'll talk of it as we go to the bank--you are so unpunctual, you know.' 'D---- your punctuality.' 'Oh! don't swear, Mr.Tudor.' 'Look here--if you don't let me have this money to-day, by all that is holy I will never pay you a farthing again--not one farthing; I'll go into the court, and you may get your money as you can.' 'But, Mr.Tudor, let me get up, and we'll talk about it in the street, as we go along.' 'There's the stamp,' said Charley.

'Fill it up, and then I'll go with you to the bank.' M'Ruen took the bit of paper, and twisted it over and over again in his hand, considering the while whether he had yet squeezed out of the young man all that could be squeezed with safety, or whether by an additional turn, by giving him another small advancement, he might yet get something more.

He knew that Tudor was in a very bad state, that he was tottering on the outside edge of the precipice; but he also knew that he had friends.
Would his friends when they came forward to assist their young Pickle out of the mire, would they pay such bills as these or would they leave poor Jabesh to get his remedy at law?
That was the question which Mr.M'Ruen had to ask and to answer.

He was not one of those noble vultures who fly at large game, and who are willing to run considerable risk in pursuit of their prey.
Mr.M'Ruen avoided courts of law as much as he could, and preferred a small safe trade; one in which the fall of a single customer could never be ruinous to him; in which he need run no risk of being transported for forgery, incarcerated for perjury, or even, if possibly it might be avoided, gibbeted by some lawyer or judge for his malpractices.
'But you are so unpunctual,' he said, having at last made up his mind that he had made a very good thing of Charley, and that probably he might go a _little_ further without much danger.
'I wish to oblige you, Mr.Tudor; but pray do be punctual;' and so saying he slowly spread the little document before him, across which Scatterall had already scrawled his name, and slowly began to write in the date.

Slowly, with his head low down over the table, and continually twisting it inside his cravat, he filled up the paper, and then looking at it with the air of a connoisseur in such matters, he gave it to Charley to sign.
'But you haven't put in the amount,' said Charley.
Mr.M'Ruen twisted his head and laughed.


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