"
"Why, you villain, these have all been paid. What! six pounds for the
dinner! Why Brigson collected the subscriptions to pay for it before it
took place."
"That's now't to me, sir. He never paid me; and as you was the young
gen'lman in the cheer, I comes to you."
_Now_ Eric knew for the first time what Brigson had meant by his
threatened revenge. He saw at once that the man had been put up to act
in this way by some one, and had little doubt that Brigson was the
instigator. Perhaps it might be even true, as the man said, that he had
never received the money. Brigson was quite wicked enough to have
embezzled it for his own purposes.
"Go," he said to the man; "you shall have the money in a week."
"And mind it bean't more nor a week. I don't chuse to wait for my money
no more," said Billy, impudently, as he retired with an undisguised
chuckle, which very nearly made Eric kick him down stairs.
What was to be done? To mention the subject to Owen or Montagu, who were
best capable of advising him, would have been to renew the memory of
unpleasant incidents, which he was most anxious to obliterate from the
memory of all.
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