"Now, how much money did you think I'd be likely to give to help you out of this scrape, and out of this country?" "Mr. Grey, you're a rich man." The banker bowed and smiled. "And that ring ought to be worth a heap of money to you." "A guinea, or perhaps thirty shillings. At the very most I should say two pounds." "But, sir, considering that it was your wife's, and that she wore it on the very day----" "Quite so. On the very day of her wedding----" "That is not what I meant----" "But that is the aspect of the affair which endears the ring to me. Pray let us keep to the business in hand. You bring me a ring which I own I should not like you to have kept from me. You make me a present of this ring, and you ask me to help you out of the country. Now, how much would be sufficient to help you out of the country, and settle you and your wife comfortably in a new home?" "A thousand pounds." "A thousand pounds! My dear Joe, if you were about to represent the majesty of the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland at a foreign court, you could ask little more for travelling-expenses and commencing existence. A thousand pounds! What a lucrative business yours must have been to make you hope you could get a thousand pounds for the goodwill of it!" "But it is not every day a thing like this turns up. You have a lot of waiting before you get your chance. In fact, my chance did not belong to the ordinary business at all." "Quite so. It was a kind of perquisite. Well, now, Joe, don't you think if I gave you twenty-five pounds as a present it would fully provide for your outward voyage?" Mr. Grey made the proposal with a winning and an enticing gesture of his left hand. Farleg looked down at his boots again, and said very slowly, and with an accent that left no doubt of his earnestness and determination: "It isn't often a chance of this kind turns up, and I can't afford to let it pass; no honest man could afford to let it pass, and I have a wife looking to me. You have no one looking to you, not even a wife--not even a wife." "Quite so." "Well, I want the money. I want to try and get an honest start in life, and I think I shall buy land----" "Out of the thousand pounds?" queried Mr. Grey, with a look of amused enjoyment. "Out of the thousand pounds you are going to give me. Can't you see," added Farleg, sitting up in his chair, leaning both his elbows on the small table between them, "can't you see it's to your advantage as well as mine to give me a large sum?" "Candidly I cannot," answered Mr. Grey, tapping Farleg encouragingly on the shoulder with his white left hand. "Tell me how it is. I am quite willing to be convinced." "Well, if I take your five-and-twenty, I spend it here, or I spend it getting there, and then I'm stranded, don't you see, sir?" "Go on." With two soft appreciative pats from the left white hand.