On Monday morning,--it was on the preceding Thursday that he had made his famous speech in Parliament,--one of the Bideawhiles had come to him in the City. He had told Mr Bideawhile that all the world knew that just at the present moment money was very 'tight' in the City. 'We are not asking for payment of a commercial debt,' said Mr Bideawhile, 'but for the price of a considerable property which you have purchased.' Mr Melmotte had suggested that the characteristics of the money were the same, let the sum in question have become due how it might. Then he offered to make the payment in two bills at three and six months' date, with proper interest allowed. But this offer Mr Bideawhile scouted with indignation, demanding that the title-deeds might be restored to them.
'You have no right whatever to demand the title-deeds,' said Melmotte. 'You can only claim the sum due, and I have already told you how I propose to pay it.'
Mr Bideawhile was nearly beside himself with dismay. In the whole course of his business, in all the records of the very respectable firm to which he belonged, there had never been such a thing as this. Of course Mr Longestaffe had been the person to blame,--so at least all the Bideawhiles declared among themselves. He had been so anxious to have dealings with the man of money that he had insisted that the title-deeds should be given up. But then the title-deeds had not been his to surrender. The Pickering estate had been the joint property of him and his son. The house had been already pulled down, and now the purchaser offered bills in lieu of the purchase money! 'Do you mean to tell me, Mr Melmotte, that you have not got the money to pay for what you have bought, and that nevertheless the title-deeds have already gone out of your hands?'
'I have property to ten times the value, twenty times the value, thirty times the value,' said Melmotte proudly; 'but you must know I should think by this time that a man engaged in large affairs cannot always realise such a sum as eighty thousand pounds at a day's notice.' Mr Bideawhile without using language that was absolutely vituperative gave Mr Melmotte to understand that he thought that he and his client had been robbed, and that he should at once take whatever severest steps the law put in his power. As Mr Melmotte shrugged his shoulders and made no further reply, Mr Bideawhile could only take his departure.