He changed his position in the chair! not for a less awkward, but for a more boastful attitude; and smiling in his miserable conceit rejoined:
`You an't a man of business, Mr. Montague. You know how to set about it, I will say.'
`Tut, tut,' said Tigg, nodding confidentially, and showing his white teeth: `we are not children, Mr. Chuzzlewit; we are grown men, I hope.'
Jonas assented, and said after a short silence, first spreading out his legs, and sticking one arm akimbo to show how perfectly at home he was,
`The truth is--'
`Don't say, the truth,' interposed Tigg, with another grin. `It's so like humbug.'
Greatly charmed by this, Jonas began again.
`The long and the short of it is--'
`Better,' muttered Tigg. `Much better!'
`--That I didn't consider myself very well used by one or two of the old companies in some negotiations I have had with 'em. Once had, I mean. They started objections they had no right to start, and put questions they had no right to put, and carried things much too high for my taste.'
As he made these observations he cast down his eyes, and looked curiously at the carpet. Mr. Tigg looked curiously at him.
He made so long a pause, that Tigg came to the rescue, and said, in his pleasantest manner:
`Take a glass of wine.'
`No, no,' returned Jonas, with a cunning shake of the head; `none of that, thankee. No wine over business. All very well for you, but it wouldn't do for me.'
`What an old hand you are, Mr. Chuzzlewit!' said Tigg, leaning back m his chair, and leering at him through his half-shut eyes.
Jonas shook his head again, as much as to say, `You're right there;' And then resumed, jocosely:
`Not such an old hand, either, but that I've been and got married. That's rather green, you'll say. Perhaps it is, especially as she's young. But one never knows what may happen to these women, so I'm thinking of insuring her life. It is but fair, you know, that a man should secure some consolation in case of meeting with such a loss.'
`If anything can console him under such heart-breaking circumstances,' murmured Tigg, with his eyes shut up as before.
`Exactly,' returned Jonas; `if anyth ing can. Now, supposing I did it here, I should do it cheap, I know, and easy, without bothering her about it; which I'd much rather not do, for it$$ just in a woman's way to take it into her head, if you talk to her about such things, that she's going to die directly.'
`So it is,' cried Tigg, kissing his hand in honour of the sex. `You're quite right. Sweet, silly, fluttering little simpletons!'