ecessity!

Wait a bit: is there no way of managing some better end to all this? no
mode of giving the right turn to that wheel of fortune, round which his
cares and calculations have been hovering so long? Is there no
conceivable method of possessing that vast hoard?

Bless me! how huge it must be! and Simon turned whiter at the thought:
only add up Mother Quarles's income for fifty-five years: she is
seventy-five at least, and came here a girl of twenty. Simon's hair
stood on end, and his heart went like a mill-clapper, as he mentally
figured out the sum.

Is there no possibility of contriving matters so that I may be the
architect of my own good luck, and no thanks at all to the old witch
there? Dear--what a glorious fancy--let me think a little. Cannot I get
at the huge hoard some how?

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE DEVIL'S COUNSEL.

"Steal it," said the Devil.

Simon was all of a twitter; for though he fancied his own heart said it,
still his ear-drum rattled, as if somebody had spoken.

Simon--that ear-drum was to put you off your guard: the deaf can hear
the devil: he needs no tympanum to commune with the spirit: listen
again, Simon; your own thoughts echo every word.

"Steal it: hide in her room; you know she has a shower-bath there, which
nobody has used for years, standing in a corner; two or three cloaks in
it, nothing else: it locks inside, how lucky! ensconce yourself there,
watch the old woman to sleep--what a fat heavy sleeper she is!--quietly
take her keys, and steal the store: remember, it is a honey-pot.
Nothing's easier--or safer. Who'd suspect you?"

"Splendid! and as good as done," triumphantly exclaimed the nephew,
snapping his fingers, and prancing with glee;--"a glorious fancy! bless
my lucky star!"

If there be a planet Lucifer, that was Simon's lucky star.

And so, Mrs Quarles the biter is going to be bit, eh? It generally is so
in this world's government. You, who brought in your estimable nephew to
aid and abet in your own dishonest ways, are, it seems, going to be
robbed of all your knavish gains by him. This is taking the wise in
their own craftiness, I reckon: and richly you deserve to lose all your
ill-got hoard. At the same time, Mrs. Quarles--I will be just--there are
worse people in the world than you are: in comparison with your nephew,
I consider you a grosser kind of angel; and I really hope no harm may
befall your old bones beyond the loss of your money. However, if you