dy is a slow, stupid youth; he always was,
and, I daresay, did not notice the smell."

Gorman was himself filled with anxiety on hearing the first part of
this, but at the conclusion he appeared relieved.

"It's lucky you turned it off so," said he, "and Roddy _is_ a stupid
fellow. I daresay he has no suspicion. In fact, I am sure of it."

"It's not of much importance _now_, however," said Boone, rising and
confronting his friend with more firmness than he had ever before
exhibited to him, "because I have resolved _not to do it_."

Gorman lit his pipe at the fire, looking at the bowl of it with a
scornful smile as he replied--

"Oh! you have made up your mind, have you?"

"Yes, decidedly. Nothing will move me. You may do your worst."

"Very good," remarked Gorman, advancing with the lighted paper towards
the heap of shavings.

Boone sprang towards him, and, seizing his arms, grasped the light and
crushed it out.

"What would you do, madman?" he cried. "You can only ruin me, but do
you not know that I will have the power to denounce you as a
fire-raiser?"

Gorman laughed, and returned to the fireplace, while Boone sat down on a
chair almost overcome with terror.

"What! you dare to defy me?" said Gorman, with an air of assumed pity.
"A pretty case you would have to make out of it. You fill your shop
with combustibles, you warn your tenant upstairs to get out of the
premises for a time in a way that must be quite unaccountable to her
(until the fire accounts for it), and your own clerk sees you spilling
turpentine about the place the day before the fire occurs, and yet you
have the stupidity to suppose that people will believe you when you
denounce _me_!"

Poor David Boone's wits seemed to be sharpened by his despair, for he
said suddenly, after a short pause--

"If the case is so bad it will tell against yourself, Gorman, for I
shall be certainly convicted, and the insurance will not be paid to
you."

"Ay, but the case is not so bad as it looks," said Gorman, "if you only
have the sense to hold your tongue and do what you are told; for nobody
knows all these things but you and me, and nobody can put them together
except ourselves--d'ye see?"

"It matters not," said Boone firmly; "I _won't_ do it--there!"

Both men leaped up. At the same moment there was a sound as of
something falling in the shop. They looked at each other.

"Go see what it is," said Gorman.

The other stepped to the door.