W. Pett Ridge

“ Barling, "that, if anything, I 've rather understated it. But I'd rather do that than appear to be trying to get the best of anybody."
"Rather."
"If the company likes to offer me a big lump sum down—I shall be wrong, perhaps, in accepting it; but still—— Well," continued Mr. Barling, with a burst of generosity, "one ought to be straightforward, even when one is dealing with a railway. What shall we say to five hundred pounds down and say no more about it?"
"I should reckon," agreed the visitor, "that that would be letting them down cheap." ”

“ Barling, but it would be a hard year indeed that frowned continuously, and last night, for the first time, luck had smiled upon him. The smile had come in the singular form of a railway accident. Not a serious accident, but with little to do but to catch flies in his City office, it was better than nothing. Mr. Barling had wired to the company's office, and now, well wrapped up and his face touched with artistic white, sat in his flat in Ashley Gardens and awaited the arrival of the company's representative.
"Can you see a gentleman, Sir?" ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1930, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 92 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”