74
ANTHONY BURGESS
a minute. Isn't that so, young Blanchard?"
Blanchard nodded that it was so. Deschamps said, cynically:
"He'll be down to collect the rents. He won't miss rent-day."
"That's where you're wrong," said young Blanchard. "No more
rents. He's not collecting any more rent-money. He says that Jean–
Baptiste had paid all the rents for ever and ever. A queer sort of
thing to say, but that's what he said."
"Astonishing," said Deschamps. They were silent, digesting this.
The typewriter clacked away over their heads.
