'My dear Miss Summerson,' said he, shaking his head pleasantly, 'I don't know. Some pounds, odd shillings, and half-pence, I think, were mentioned.'
'It's twenty-four pound, sixteen, and seven-pence ha'penny,' observed the stranger. 'That's wot it is.'
'And it sounds – somehow it sounds,' said Mr. Skimpole, 'like a small sum?'
The strange man said nothing, but made another snort. It was such a powerful one, that it seemed quite to lift him out of his seat.
'Mr. Skimpole,' said Richard to me, 'has a delicacy in applying to my cousin Jarndyce, because he has lately – I think, sir, I understood you that you had lately—'
'Oh, yes!' returned Mr. Skimpole, smiling. 'Though I forgot how much it was, and when it was. Jarndyce would readily do it again; but I have the epicure-like feeling that I would prefer a novelty in help; that I would rather,' and he looked at Richard and me, 'develop generosity in a new soil, and in a new form of flower.'
'What do you think will be best, Miss Summerson?' said Richard, aside.
I ventured to inquire, generally, before replying, what would happen if the money were not produced.
'Jail,' said the strange man, coolly putting his handkerchief into his hat, which was on the floor at his feet. 'Or Coavinses.'
'May I ask, sir, what is—'
'Coavinses?' said the strange man. 'A 'ouse.'
Richard and I looked at one another again. It was a most singular thing that the arrest was our embarrassment, and not Mr. Skimpole's. He observed us with a genial interest; but there seemed, if I may venture on such a contradiction, nothing selfish in it. He had entirely washed his hands of the difficulty, and it had become ours.
'I thought,' he suggested, as if good-naturedly to help us out, 'that being parties in a Chancery suit concerning (as people say) a large amount of property, Mr. Richard or his beautiful cousin, or both, could sign something, or make over something, or give some sort of undertaking, or pledge, or bond? I don't know what the business name of it may be, but I suppose there is some instrument within their power that would settle this?'
'Not a bit on it,' said the strange man.
'Really?' returned Mr. Skimpole. 'That seems odd, now, to one who is no judge of these things!'
'Odd or even,' said the stranger, gruffly, 'I tell you, not a bit on it!'