"Business, my lady!" Mr. Pole resumed. "Ah, you don't know what that is. We've got to work hard to keep our heads up equal with you. We don't swim with corks. And my old friend, Ralph Tinley--he sells iron, and has got a mine. That's simple. But, my God, ma'am, when a man has his eye on the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic, and the Baltic, and the Black Sea, and half-a-dozen colonies at once, he--you--" "Well, it's a precious big eye he's got, Pole," Mrs. Chump came to his relief. "--he don't know whether he's a ruined dog, or a man to hold up his head in any company." "Oh, Lord, Pole, if ye're going to talk of beggary!" Mrs. Chump threw up her hands. "My lady, I naver could abide the name of 't. I'm a kind heart, ye know, but I can't bear a ragged friend. I hate 'm! He seems to give me a pinch." Having uttered this, it struck her that it was of a kind to convulse Mrs. Lupin, for whose seizures she could never accurately account; and looking round, she perceived, sure enough, that little forlorn body agitated, with a handkerchief to her mouth. "As to Besworth," Mr. Pole had continued, "I might buy twenty Besworths. If--if the cut shows the right card. If--" Sweat started on his forehead, and he lifted his eyebrows, blinking. "But none!" (he smote the table) "none can say I haven't been a good father! I've educated my girls to marry the best the land can show. I bought a house to marry them out of; it was their own idea." He caught Arabella's eyes. I thought so, at all events; for why should I have paid the money if I hadn't thought so? when then--yes, that sum..." (was he choking!) saved me!--saved me!" A piteous desperate outburst marked the last words, that seemed to struggle from a tightened cord. "Not that there's anything the matter," he resumed, with a very brisk wink. "I'm quite sound: heart's sound, lungs sound, stomach regular. I can see, and smell, and hear. Sense of touch is rather lumpy at times, I know; but the doctor says it's nothing--nothing at all; and I should be all right, if I didn't feel that I was always wearing a great leaden hat." "My gracious, Pole, if ye're not talkin' pos'tuv nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Chump. "Well, my dear Martha" (Mr. Pole turned to her argumentatively), "how do you account for my legs? I feel it at top. I declare I've felt the edge of the brim half a yard out. Now, my lady, a man in that state--sound and strong as the youngest--but I mean a vexed man--worried man bothered man, he doesn't want a woman to look after him;--I mean, he does--he does! And why won't young girls--oh! they might, they might--see that? And when she's no extra expense, but brings him--helps him to face--and no one has said the world's a jolly world so often as I have. It's jolly!" He groaned. Lady Charlotte saw Wilfrid gazing at one spot on the table without a change of countenance. She murmured to him, "What hits you hits me."