“Two hundred yens … to keep safe …” he sighed after a long silence, during which he returned to his chair. The clumsy impersonal settling of his wide buttocks in his chair looked as though some solid shiny Buddha in a large invisible grasp were being balanced on its pedestal again.
“Two hundred yens …” repeated Olga, turning her smile upon Wilfred again after a murmured word or two with her husband. “Well, perhaps we have make little mistake about the good gift—we have thought Sergei Dmitrivitch a so good friend; he has said, ‘It is a gift,’ and we could not believe he shall ask to take away his gift. Now we understand. This is not friendship—to give a gift and then to take away. It has not been love or gratefulness. It has been business. Our mistake has been because we have loved Sergei Dmitrivitch.”
“It was the beginning of your prosperity, my dear Mrs. Isaev,” said Wilfred, throwing his hands apart and looking round as though to reintroduce her to all the family possessions in sight—the spittoons, the ornate buffet crowded with bright bottles, the pots of ferns, the wobbly wicker tables, the blackwood chairs, the posters of the South Manchurian Railway and the British American Tobacco Company on the walls. … “What more could a friend do than help you to reach this luxury?”
“To say this is not good, Mr. Chew,” said Olga archly. “We have not luxury. We are poor. Yet my husband will, perhaps, when he is able to do without so much money, send two hundred yens to Chi-tao-kou, if Sergei Dmitrivitch, poor man, is now not in good position. Perhaps next year we shall try to afford to do this.”
Wilfred, by some freak in the angles of two mirrors in the room, had just caught sight of his own neat seated form in profile. Some of us, when we do this, have the feeling that we have caught ourselves out, that we have accidentally trespassed behind our own vanity. Not so Wilfred. He never caught himself out. All that he saw in that reflected Wilfred Chew who sat over there unconscious, as it were, of being looked at, pleased and encouraged him, buttressed him in his confidence. English clothes—a neat auburn tie just showing under the profile of the round chin—English Panama hat held in a refined hand upon the knee—English words parting those superior smiling lips—in that encouraging mirror Wilfred saw before him truly an angel on a mission of guardianship, a success among failures, a water-lily among frogs—all, in fact, that he hoped to be.
“Mr. and Mrs. Isaev,” he said, in a rather sharper voice, “there is no use in this beating about of birds in the bush. I speak now as Mr. S. D. Malinin’s man of business. If you will think again, you will see that this is not a matter of two hundred yen to be sent in charitableness, when it can be spared, to a poor chap in China. This is a matter of the immediate withdrawal of a certain sum of money, Mr. S. D. Malinin’s capital, from your thriving business, together with the interest that has accumulated in ten years. You have used this money, successfully and skillfully, in the building up of your business, but it is not your money and never was. It is perfectly easy for me to prove that hitherto there has been no consideration given in return for Mr. Malinin’s two hundred yen. It was not a gift, and was never mistaken for a gift—the terms of the receipt preclude that. Therefore it was an investment on which, though dividends have been earned, none have as yet been paid, and none demanded up till now. Here is this little book on compound interest which I mentioned before. According to that, since the time expired since the investment was made is just three months over ten years, the sum in question should now amount to four hundred and nine yen sixty-five sen. In the name of Mr. S. D. Malinin, therefore, and of his son, Mr. S. S. Malinin, who holds his Power of Attorney, I demand the immediate return of this money—namely, four hundred and nine yen sixty-five sen. There is no matter of opinion—nothing good-natured or bad-natured—this is simply a business matter, and we are business men and woman who know that what must be must, and what doesn’t want to be can be made to be.”
Both Isaevs looked at Wilfred astounded, Olga’s amiable mouth dropping open and her husband’s grim slit welded more tightly shut. From now on, a curious contradiction began to make itself felt—that Olga’s radiant acquiescence somehow obstructed settlement, while Isaev’s superficial intransigeance had the effect of advancing matters.
“You are a so good man, Mr. Chew,” said Olga. “I know you will not be angry when I tell you how much you mistake. We are not prosperitous. We are full of misfortunes. That fire in our kitchen last year—oi! how misfortunate. We have losed three hundred yens’ worth of our kitchen properties—saucepan, boiler, dishes, icebox—all losed. Truly this is Sergei Dmitrivitch’s money that is losed. … When he has given the money, he has said, ‘This two hundred yens will pay your kitchen properties. …’ Now kitchen is burnt—Sergei Dmitrivitch’s money is losed. Poor Isaev—poor Malinin—it is truly misfortunate for both. …”
Wilfred smiled a little insolently as he sat leaning forward, swaying his hat between his knees with his right hand, like a snake-charmer at work. He made no reply to Olga’s appeal. “A pleasant enough woman,” he thought, “but rather a fool.”
Olga rose from the arm of her husband’s chair and fetched three glasses and a bottle of port wine. “Mr. Chew, you must please arrange this matter more good for us. You are our friend, too—see, now, you will drink with us. My husband cannot give this large number of yens—even if enemy
