"In plain English," said Obenreizer, "you doubt my word?"
"Do you purpose to take my word for it when I inform you that I have doubled my income?" asked Vendale. "If my memory does not deceive me, you stipulated, a minute since, for plain proofs?"
"Well played, Mr. Vendale! You combine the foreign quickness with the English solidity. Accept my best congratulations. Accept, also, my written guarantee."
He rose; seated himself at a writing-desk at a side-table, wrote a few lines, and presented them to Vendale with a low bow. The engagement was perfectly explicit, and was signed and dated with scrupulous care.
"Are you satisfied with your guarantee?"
"I am satisfied."
"Charmed to hear it, I am sure. We have had our little skirmish--we have really been wonderfully clever on both sides. For the present our affairs are settled. I bear no malice. You bear no malice. Come, Mr. Vendale, a good English shake hands."
Vendale gave his hand, a little bewildered by Obenreizer's sudden transitions from one humour to another.
"When may I expect to see Miss Obenreizer again?" he asked, as he rose to go.
"Honour me with a visit to-morrow," said Obenreizer, "and we will settle it then. Do have a grog before you go! No? Well! well! we will reserve the grog till you have your three thousand a year, and are ready to be married. Aha! When will that be?"
"I made an estimate, some months since, of the capacities of my business," said Vendale. "If that estimate is correct, I shall double my present income--"
"And be married!" added Obenreizer.
"And be married," repeated Vendale, "within a year from this time. Good- night."