“These are little things--mere trifles,” continued Thorpe, dogmatically, “but with men of my temper and make-up those are just the things that aggravate and rankle and hurt. Maybe it's foolish, but that's the kind of man I am. You ought to have had the intelligence to see that--and not let these stupid little things happen to annoy me. Why just think what you did. I was going to do God knows what for you--make your fortune and everything else,--and you didn't show consideration enough for me to get out of bed at a decent hour--much less see to it that I had a chair if you were going to have one.”
“Upon my word, I can't tell how ashamed and sorry I am,” Lord Plowden assured him, with fervent contrition in his voice.
“Well, those are the things to guard against,” said Thorpe, approaching a dismissal of the subject. “People who show consideration for me; people who take pains to do the little pleasant things for me, and see that I'm not annoyed and worried by trifles--they're the people that I, on my side, do the big things for. I can be the best friend in the world, but only to those who show that they care for me, and do what they know I'll like. I don't want toadies about me, but I do want people who feel bound to me, and are as keen about me and my feelings and interests as they are about their own.”
“It is delightfully feudal--all this,” commented the nobleman, smilingly addressing the remark to nobody in particular. Then he looked at Thorpe. “Let me be one of them--one of the people you speak of,” he said, with directness.
Thorpe returned his look with the good-natured beginnings of a grin. “But what would you be good for?” he queried, in a bantering tone. “People I have about me have to be of some use. They require to have heads on their shoulders. Why--just think what you've done. I don't mean so much about your letting Tavender slip through your fingers--although that was about the worst I ever heard of. But here in this room, at that desk there, you allowed me to bounce you into writing and signing a paper which you ought to have had your hand cut off rather than write, much less sign. You come here trying to work the most difficult and dangerous kind of a bluff,--knowing all the while that the witness you depended entirely upon had disappeared, you hadn't the remotest idea where,--and you actually let me lead you into giving me your signature to your own declaration that you are blackmailing me! Thinking it all over--you know--I can't see that you would be of much help to me in the City.”