He had allowed the talk
to drift to a point where it became almost affable.
He sat upright with a sudden determination, and put his feet
firmly on the floor, and knitted his brows in austerity.
"It was not only a dirty trick that you tried to play me,
"he said, in an altered, harsh tone, "but it was a
fool-trick. That drunken old bum of a Tavender writes
some lunatic nonsense or other to Gafferson, and he's
a worse idiot even than Tavender is, and on the strength
of what one of these clowns thinks he surmises the other
clown means, you go and spend your money,--money I
gave you, by the way,--in bringing Tavender over here.
You do this on the double chance, we'll say, of using
him against me for revenge and profit combined,
or of peddling him to me for a still bigger profit.
You see it's all at my fingers' ends."
Lord Plowden nodded an unqualified assent.
"Well then--Tavender arrives. What do you do? Are you
at the wharf to meet him? Have you said to yourself: 'I've
set out to fight one of the smartest and strongest men
in England, and I've got to keep every atom of wits about me,
and strain every nerve to the utmost, and watch every point
of the game as a tiger watches a snake'? Not a bit of it!
You snooze in bed, and you send Gafferson--Gafferson!--the
mud-head of the earth! to meet your Tavender, and loaf
about with him in London, and bring him down by a slow
train to your place in the evening.
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