"No consideration on earth," he once said to me, very solemnly, "I say none, should make me again enter that room." And, indeed, this feeling was so strong with him, that from the day when his affairs took a turn he would never even walk down South Audley Street. On the morning in question, into this torture-chamber Mr. Sowerby went, and there, after some two or three minutes, he was joined by Mr. Fothergill.
Mr. Fothergill was, in one respect, like to his friend Sowerby. He enacted two altogether different persons on occasions which were altogether different. Generally speaking, with the world at large, he was a jolly, rollicking, popular man, fond of eating and drinking, known to be devoted to the duke's interests, and supposed to be somewhat unscrupulous, or, at any rate, hard when they were concerned, but in other respects a good-natured fellow; and there was a report about that he had once lent somebody money without charging him interest or taking security. On the present occasion Sowerby saw at a glance that he had come thither with all the aptitudes and appurtenances of his business about him. He walked into the room with a short, quick step; there was no smile on his face as he shook hands with his old friend; he brought with him a box laden with papers and parchments, and he had not been a minute in the room before he was seated in one of the old dingy chairs.
"How long have you been in town, Fothergill?" said Sowerby, still standing with his back against the chimney. He had resolved on only one thing—that nothing should induce him to touch, look at, or listen to any of those papers. He knew well enough that no good would come of that. He also had his own lawyer, to see that he was pilfered according to rule.
"How long? Since the day before yesterday. I never was so busy in my life. The duke, as usual, wants to have every thing done at once."
"If he wants to have all that I owe him paid at once, he is like to be out in his reckoning."
"Ah! well, I'm glad you are ready to come quickly to business, because it's always best. Won't you come and sit down here?"
"No, thank you, I'll stand."
"But we shall have to go through these figures, you know."
