The newspaper slipped rustling to the
floor on the side near the window. Already his gloves were abominable
in the slop-basin, and now with a single gesture he had destroyed the
symmetry of the set table. Mrs. Maldon with surpassing patience smiled
sweetly, and assured herself that Mr. Batchgrew could not help it. He
was a coarse male creature at large in a room highly feminized. It was
his habit thus to pass through orderly interiors, distributing havoc,
like a rough soldier. You might almost hear a sword clanking in the
scabbard.
"Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty," he began in his heavily
rolling voice to count out one by one a bundle of notes which he had
taken from the envelope. He generously licked his thick, curved-back
thumb for the separating of the notes, and made each note sharply
click, in the manner of a bank cashier, to prove to himself that it
was not two notes stuck together. "... Five-seventy, five-eighty,
five-ninety, six hundred. These are all tens. Now the fives: Five,
ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five." He counted up to three hundred and
sixty-five. "That's nine-sixty-five altogether. The odd sixty-five's
arrear of interest. I'm investing nine hundred again to-morrow, and
th' interest on th' new investment is to start from th' first o' this
month.
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