At last, one morning, a messenger arrived to report that the cauldron was ready for delivery, and on the afternoon of the same day the chief engineer, instructed that he might pay three pounds but not a penny more, took with him a cart and crossed the river to Birkenhead. He found the pan turned upside down on the cindery ground of the camp and proposed to remove it to the refinery in order that the quality of the work might be examined. But the Gypsies, holding that possession is nine-tenths of the law, refused to permit the removal before payment was made. The wisdom of their decision became evident when bargaining began, for the engineer offered one pound while they, with fierce indignation, demanded twenty-five, making the sum unmistakably clear by placing a sovereign on the pan and indicating the numeral by means of their outstretched fingers. The discrepancy between claim and tender was too wide for easy or rapid adjustment, and neither side showed any willingness to compromise. The engineer, accustomed to dealing with Orientals, stuck to his terms, but finding the Gypsies equally stubborn and much noisier, and convinced as tea-time approached that no settlement was then possible, he ordered the cart back to Liverpool and himself withdrew from the conference.
And then the Gypsies made a false step. The engineer had scarcely settled down to his evening meal when, to his amazement, word was sent from the refinery that the cauldron and the coppersmiths were at the gate. They had changed their minds, hastened to overtake the cart aboard the luggage-boat, and persuaded the carter to return to the tents and bring the pan away. The office being closed when they arrived, settlement of their little account was out of the question, and, obliged to surrender the only security they had for payment, they could but protest loudly and depart with an invitation to call again the next day.
Other duties kept me away from business, and I was not a spectator of their visit. But I heard afterwards long, eloquent and indignant stories of how Milanko, apparelled like a mountebank, with his father and the deformed dwarf Burda or Morkosh, his cousin’s husband, dared to profane the solemnity of the counting-house, a sanctuary where the cumulative respectability of five generations of sugar-boilers is devoutly worshipped. Never during the whole course of its long business experience had that chamber entertained guests so unwelcome. They arrived at ten in the morning and stayed until half-past two, demanding payment from the cashier and relenting gradually from twenty-five to seven pounds, less than which they long refused to accept. Nobody knew what to do with them—the situation was unprecedented. When tired of standing and worrying busy clerks with the question “Master, what you do now?” they scandalized the whole staff by sitting cross-legged on the floor. It was a contest of endurance; and, thanks to the definite orders I had left, we won. Just as the problem of what was to happen at closing time, if they were still in possession, was becoming insistent, the Gypsies gave way, accepted three pounds and retired, after desecrating the office for four hours and a half.