We told him that we should go to school again when Father could manage it, but meantime we wanted to do something to restore the fallen fortunes of the House of Bastable. And we said we thought the lucrative patent would be a very good thing. He asked a lot of questions, and we told him everything we didn't think Father would mind our telling, and at last he said -'You wish to borrow money. When will you repay it?'
'As soon as we've got it, of course,' Dicky said.
Then the G. B. said to Oswald, 'You seem the eldest,' but I explained to him that it was Dicky's idea, so my being eldest didn't matter. Then he said to Dicky - 'You are a minor, I presume?'
Dicky said he wasn't yet, but he had thought of being a mining engineer some day, and going to Klondike.
'Minor, not miner,' said the G. B. 'I mean you're not of age?'
'I shall be in ten years, though,' said Dicky.
'Then you might repudiate the loan,' said the G. B., and Dicky said 'What?'
Of course he ought to have said 'I beg your pardon. I didn't quite catch what you said' - that is what Oswald would have said. It is more polite than 'What.'
'Repudiate the loan,' the G. B - repeated. 'I mean you might say you would not pay me back the money, and the law could not compel you to do so.'
'Oh, well, if you think we're such sneaks,' said Dicky, and he got up off his chair. But the G. B. said, 'Sit down, sit down; I was only joking.'
Then he talked some more, and at last he said - 'I don't advise you to enter into that partnership. It's a swindle. Many advertisements are. And I have not a hundred pounds by me to-day to lend you. But I will lend you a pound, and you can spend it as you like. And when you are twenty-one you shall pay me back.'
'I shall pay you back long before that,' said Dicky. 'Thanks, awfully! And what about the note of hand?'
'Oh,' said the G. B., 'I'll trust to your honour. Between gentlemen, you know - and ladies' - he made a beautiful bow to Alice -'a word is as good as a bond.'
Then he took out a sovereign, and held it in his hand while he talked to us. He gave us a lot of good advice about not going into business too young, and about doing our lessons - just swatting a bit, on our own hook, so as not to be put in a low form when we went back to school. And all the time he was stroking the sovereign and looking at it as if he thought it very beautiful.