“Don’t be silly, Jimmy,” said Mrs. Cullingworth mildly, while he roared with laughter, with all his fangs flashing under his bristling moustache. The girl edged closer to her mistress, looking half-frightened and half-angry. “All right, Mary, no harm!” he cried. “Sit down, Munro, old chap. Get a bottle of champagne, Mary, and we’ll drink to more luck.” Well, we had a very pleasant little dinner. It is never slow if Cullingworth is about. He is one of those men who make a kind of magnetic atmosphere, so that you feel exhilarated and stimulated in their presence. His mind is so nimble and his thoughts so extravagant, that your own break away from their usual grooves, and surprise you by their activity. You feel pleased at your own inventiveness and originality, when you are really like the wren when it took a lift on the eagle’s shoulder. Old Peterson, you remember, used to have a similar effect upon you in the Linlithgow days. In the middle of dinner he plunged off, and came back with a round bag about the size of a pomegranate in his hand. “What d’ye think this is, Munro? Eh?” “I have no idea.” “Our day’s take. Eh, Hetty?” He undid a string, and in an instant a pile of gold and silver rattled down upon the cloth, the coins whirling and clinking among the dishes. One rolled off the table and was retrieved by the maid from some distant corner. “What is it, Mary? A half sovereign? Put it in your pocket. What did the lot come to, Hetty?” “Thirty-one pound eight.” “You see, Munro! One day’s work.” He plunged his hand into his trouser pocket and brought out a pile of sovereigns, which he balanced in his palm. “Look at that, laddie. Rather different from my Avonmouth form, eh? What?” “It will be good news for them,” I suggested. He was scowling at me in an instant with all his old ferocity. You cannot imagine a more savage-looking creature than Cullingworth is when his temper goes wrong. He gets a perfectly fiendish expression in his light blue eyes, and all his hair bristles up like a striking cobra. He isn’t a beauty at his best, but at his worst he’s really phenomenal. At the first danger signal his wife had ordered the maid from the room. “What rot you do talk, Munro!” he cried. “Do you suppose I am going to cripple myself for years by letting those debts hang on to me?” “I understood that you had promised,” said I. “Still, of course, it is no business of mine.” “I should hope not,” he cried. “A tradesman stands to win or to lose. He allows a margin for bad debts. I would have paid it if I could. I couldn’t, and so I wiped the slate clean. No one in his senses would dream of spending all the money that I make in Bradfield upon the tradesmen of Avonmouth.” “Suppose they come down upon you?”