Here are smaller bills liquidated. With
my pencil we will add them up. Seventy-eight pounds--the principal
debt--bulks large. We add the smaller items and it reaches a total of
ninety-three pounds seven shillings and fourpence. Let us now examine
my purse. Here is a five-pound note; there is a golden sovereign. I
now count out and place on the table twelve and sixpence in silver and
two pence in coppers. The purse thus becomes empty. Let us add the
silver and copper to the amount on the paper. Do my eyes deceive me,
or is the sum exactly a hundred pounds? There is your money fully
accounted for.'
'Pardon me, Mr. Dacre,' I said, 'but I observe a sovereign resting on
the mantelpiece.'
Dacre threw back his head and laughed with greater heartiness than I
had yet known him to indulge in during our short acquaintance.
'By Jove,' he cried, 'you've got me there. I'd forgotten entirely
about that pound on the mantelpiece, which belongs to you.'
'To me? Impossible!'
'It does, and cannot interfere in the least with our century
calculation. That is the sovereign you gave to my man Hopper, who,
knowing me to be hard-pressed, took it and shamefacedly presented it
to me, that I might enjoy the spending of it.
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