"Her benefit, indeed. Fiddle-de-dee! Your own you mean. I know what men are. If she was an ugly slut you wouldn't take no notice of her. Don't talk rubbish. What are you a going to give me for saying, yes. That's business, mister. Come, how much?" The poet saw there was no other way but talking business. This embarrassed him still more for he was the last man qualified to act in such a capacity. "I'll see what I can do," said he nervously, "but you mustn't forget that Lavinia will have to be quite two years at school, and there is her music master----" "Oh I dare say," rejoined the lady scoffingly, "and the mantle maker, and the milliner, and the glover, and the hairdresser. That's your affair, not mine. Name a round sum and I'll try to meet you. What d'ye say?" "Would five guineas----?" "What!" shrieked Lavinia's mother. "And you call yourself a gentleman?" "The sum I admit is a small one, but as you seemed anxious to get your daughter off your hands I thought I was doing you a service by putting the girl in a way to earn a good living." "I dare say. I'm not to be taken in like that. Fine words butter no parsnips. While Lavinia's in the house I'll go bail I'll make her work. If she goes away I've got to pay someone in her place, haven't I? Twenty guineas is the very lowest I'll take, and if you was anything like the gentleman you look you'd make it double." The haggling over such a matter and the coarse mercenary nature of the woman jarred upon the poet's sensitive soul. The plain fact that he hadn't got twenty guineas in the world could not be gainsaid. But he had rich friends. If he could only interest them in this protegee of his something might be done. And there were the "Fables." "Twenty guineas," he repeated. "Well, I'll do my best. In two days' time, Mrs. Fenton, I will come and see you and most likely all will be settled to your satisfaction." "Two days. Aye. No longer or maybe my price'll go up." "I shall not fail. Now, Mrs. Fenton, before I go I'd like to see Lavinia once more." "No, this business is between you an' me, mister. The hussy's naught to do with it. She'll have to behave herself while she's with me. That's all I have to say about _her_." So Gay rose and walked out of the box feeling as though he'd been through a severe drubbing. He might have been sufficiently disheartened to shatter his castle in the air had he not seen Lavinia's big sorrowful eyes fixed upon him from the kitchen. He dared not disobey her mother's behest not to speak to her so he tried to smile encouragingly, and to intimate by his expression that all was going well. Whether he succeeded in so doing he was by no means sure. On leaving the coffee house Gay walked towards Charing Cross and thence along the Haymarket to Piccadilly. His destination was Queensberry House to the north of Burlington Gardens. Here lived Gay's good friends the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, and indeed Gay himself, save when he was at Twickenham with Pope.