Oh, but
it's long and long to wait! Good-bye, Bessie,--send Beeton here as you go out."
The housekeeper came.
"What are all the fittings of my rooms worth?" said Dick, imperiously.
"'Tisn't for me to say, sir. Some things is very pretty and some is wore out
dreadful."
"I'm insured for two hundred and seventy."
"Insurance policies is no criterion, though I don't say----"
"Oh, damn your longwindedness! You've made your pickings out of me and the
other tenants. Why, you talked of retiring and buying a public-house the other
day. Give a straight answer to a straight question."
"Fifty," said Mr. Beeton, without a moment's hesitation.
"Double it; or I'll break up half my sticks and burn the rest."
He felt his way to a bookstand that supported a pile of sketch-books, and
wrenched out one of the mahogany pillars.
"That's sinful, sir," said the housekeeper, alarmed.
"It's my own. One hundred or----"
"One hundred it is. It'll cost me three and six to get that there pilaster
mended."
"I thought so. What an out and out swindler you must have been to spring that
price at once!"
"I hope I've done nothing to dissatisfy any of the tenants, least of all you,
sir."
"Never mind that. Get me the money tomorrow, and see that all my clothes are
packed in the little brown bullock-trunk.
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