“How long will the business take?” “That depends on yourself; it ought to be done within a fortnight.” “Then tell Long John from me that he must get some other man to do the job; I am already engaged and cannot go.” “This is madness,” said Scrivener; “you are the only man among us who can go. How can you pretend to be one of us and yet shirk duty in this way?” “You must get someone else,” repeated Rowton. “Ah! here comes lunch; you can lunch with me, after all, if you please, Scrivener; I can recommend this round of beef. Samson, bring in some ale.” The man withdrew. “You’ll have to go,” pursued Scrivener, as he followed his host to the table. “I do not intend to; I have another engagement.” “But no one else speaks Spanish; you are the only one among us who has the slightest smattering of the tongue. You alone can do the work.” Adrian drew the great joint of beef towards him. “I am sorry to disoblige,” he said, as he cut huge slices from the joint and piled them on his guest’s plate, “but the fact is, I am going to be married next week.” “Great Heaven!” cried Scrivener. “Is this the time for marrying? What do we want with a woman in the business?” Rowton’s black eyes flashed. “Do you think I would bring her into your accursed business?” he said. “Not I; but now listen once for all, Scrivener. I marry the girl I love next week, and I go away with her on a holiday and don’t return to business for a month. For five weeks from now I take complete holiday. You can tell Long John so from me. At the end of that time I am once more at his service. Now he can take me or leave me. I am quite willing to cut the concern, notwithstanding your threats. I can get off to Australia as knowingly as anybody else.” “No, you can’t, Rowton; your personality is too marked. Cut four inches off your height, and take a trifle from your breadth, and give you less strongly marked features, and you might manage the thing; but what disguise could you put on that we should not see Adrian Rowton peeping through? You have no help for yourself; you are in the toils and you must stay with us to the bitter end.” “I am always forgetting,” said Rowton. “Were it not for—” he stretched out his huge arms as he spoke and indulged in a mighty yawn—“were it not for the angel who will soon walk by my side, I would cut the knot in another way. As it is, you do well to remind me of my cage, Scrivener; I am in it, but even a captive lion has the liberty of the length of his chain; and I shall take mine to the full length of my tether. Five weeks I take; a week to get ready for my wedding bells and four weeks of bliss with the angel of my life. After that you and the devil can have your way. Now I have spoken, and you can take my message to Long John.” “You have spoken truly,” said Scrivener. “I’ll take your message; I do not promise what the upshot will be.”