"Handsome would be the word," returned my sister.
"Well, then," said Joe, "it's more than twenty pound."
That abject hypocrite, Pumblechook, nodded again, and said, with a patronising laugh, "It's more than that, Mum. Good again! Follow her up, Joseph!"
"Then to make an end of it," said Joe, delightedly handing the bag to my sister; "it's five-and-twenty pound."
"It's five-and-twenty pound, Mum," echoed that basest of swindlers, Pumblechook, rising to shake hands with her; "and it's no more than your merits (as I said when my opinion was asked), and I wish you joy of the money!"
If the villain had stopped here, his case would have been sufficiently awful, but he blackened his guilt by proceeding to take me into custody, with the right of patronage that left all his former criminality far behind.
"Now you see, Joseph and wife," said Pumblechook, as he took me by the arm above the elbow, "I am one of them that
