“There, that will do, Venerable, a very little of that goes a long way; besides, I believe I have heard you say as much before. And, look here, girls, I shall expect you both to practise that glee we were singing last night, to-day and to-morrow, so as to be perfect in the evening, and not make such an exhibition of yourselves as you did last night. And now, all three of you take yourselves off at once, and make up your minds about the theatre; I want to have ten minutes talk with the pater upon business before we start.”
Mrs. Bingham rose without a word, and went out accompanied by the girls, with the parting remark, given in a decided tone, which defied contradiction, that “there never was such a dear fellow in the world.”
Fred Bingham was very kind to his mother and sisters. He was liberal in the extreme with his money, and they deservedly doted upon him. He was, it is true, excessively dictatorial in his way of speaking to them, but they obeyed all he said unquestioningly, taking it partly as fun, partly his right, the due of his extreme kindness and cleverness.
When they had left the room, Frederick Bingham turned to the father. The smile had gone from his face now, and he spoke in a cold hard business way, very different from the light jesting tone he had used to his mother.
“I should think two hours will be quite sufficient; it is not a large house.”
“Those Biglows have not paid their rent yet. I think you had better go up to St. John’s Wood and see about it.”
“I will go if you think so, Fred, but it will be of no use.”
“Give them to the end of the week, and if they don’t pay on Saturday, put a man in the first thing on Monday morning.”
“You see, Fred, they said last week when I saw them,” Mr. Bingham said hesitatingly, “that Biglow had been ill for months, and had been too weak to touch a brush.”
“That is their business,” the son said harshly, “not ours. Let them go into a smaller house. There will be enough furniture left, after paying us our half-year’s rent to furnish that. The furniture is very good. I took particular notice myself last time I saw them. Anyhow, the dining-room alone is worth fifty pounds at a sale. You can tell them that you don’t want to do anything unhandsome, but that you must have the forty pounds they owe; and that rather than sell them up, if they like to leave the dining-room and drawing-room furniture, we will let them take the rest out and cry quits. That will suit both of us; it will save them being sold up, and it is worth a good hundred pounds to us.”