You think because I've a
public-house I'm coining money; well, I ain't. It's cruel the business we
do here. You wouldn't believe it, and you know that better liquor can't be
got in the neighbourhood." Old John listened with the indifference of a
man whose life is absorbed in one passion and who can interest himself
with nothing else. Esther asked him after Mrs. Randal and his children,
but conversation on the subject was always disagreeable to him, and he
passed it over with few words. As soon as Esther moved away he leant
forward and whispered, "Lay me twelve pounds to ten shillings. I'll be
sure to pay you; there's a new restaurant going to open in Oxford Street
and I'm going to apply for the place of headwaiter."
"Yes, but will you get it?" William answered brutally. He did not mean to
be unkind, but his nature was as hard and as plain as a kitchen-table. The
chin dropped into the unstarched collar and the old-fashioned necktie, and
old John continued smoking unnoticed by any one. Esther looked at him. She
saw he was down on his luck, and she remembered the tall, melancholy,
pale-faced woman whom she had met weeping by the sea-shore the day that
Silver Braid had won the cup. She wondered what had happened to her, in
what corner did she live, and where was the son that John Randal had not
allowed to enter the Barfield establishment as page-boy, thinking he would
be able to make something better of him than a servant.
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