However, the banker did not keep him waiting more than five or six minutes. “Mr. Cope will see you, sir,” said a liveried messenger, who came up to him with a low bow; and into Mr. Cope’s parlour the Squire was thereupon ushered. The two men met with a certain amount of restraint on either side. They shook hands as a matter of course, and made a few remarks about the weather; and then the banker began to play with his seals, and waited in bland silence to hear whatever the Squire might have to say to him. Mr. Culpepper fidgeted in his chair and cleared his throat. The crucial moment was come at last. “I’m in a bit of a difficulty, Cope,” he began, “and I’ve come to you, as one of the oldest friends I have, to see whether you can help me out of it.” “I should have thought that Mr. Culpepper was one of the last people in the world to be troubled with difficulties of any kind,” said the banker, in a tone of studied coldness. “Which shows how little you know about either Mr. Culpepper or his affairs,” said the Squire, dryly. The banker coughed dubiously. “In what way can I be of service to you?” he said. “I want five thousand five hundred pounds by this day week, and I’ve come to you to help me to raise it.” “In other words, you want to borrow five thousand five hundred pounds?” “Exactly so.” “And what kind of security are you prepared to offer for a loan of such magnitude?” “What security! Why, my I.O.U., of course.” Mr. Cope took a pinch of snuff slowly and deliberately before he spoke again. “I am afraid the document in question could hardly be looked upon as a negotiable security.” “And who the deuce wanted it to be considered as a negotiable security?” burst out the Squire. “Do you think I want everybody to know my private affairs?” “Possibly not,” said the banker, quietly. “But, in transactions of this nature, it is a matter of simple business that the person who advances the money should have some equivalent security in return.” “And is not my I.O.U. a good and equivalent security as between friend and friend?” “Oh if you are going to put the case in that way, it becomes a different kind of transaction entirely,” said the banker. “And how else did you think I was going to put the case, as you call it?” asked the Squire, indignantly. “Commercially, of course: as a pure matter of business between one man and another.” “Oh, ho that’s it, is it?” said the Squire, grimly. “That’s just it, Mr. Culpepper.” “Then friendship in such a case as this counts for nothing, and my I.O.U. might just as well never be written.”