me to
sell and pocket everything, and going off again leaving us in the
lurch? I should be glad to see you whipped at the cart-tail. My
mother was a fool to you: she'd no right to give me a father-in-law,
and she's been punished for it. She shall have her weekly allowance
paid and no more: and that shall be stopped if you dare to come on to
these premises again, or to come into this country after me again. The
next time you show yourself inside the gates here, you shall be driven
off with the dogs and the wagoner's whip."

As Rigg pronounced the last words he turned round and looked at Raffles
with his prominent frozen eyes. The contrast was as striking as it
could have been eighteen years before, when Rigg was a most unengaging
kickable boy, and Raffles was the rather thick-set Adonis of bar-rooms
and back-parlors. But the advantage now was on the side of Rigg, and
auditors of this conversation might probably have expected that Raffles
would retire with the air of a defeated dog. Not at all. He made a
grimace which was habitual with him whenever he was "out" in a game;
then subsided into a laugh, and drew a brandy-flask from his pocket.

"Come, Josh," he said, in a cajoling tone, "give us a spoonful of
brandy, and a sovereign to pay the way back, and I'll go. Honor
bright! I'll go like a bullet, _by_ Jove!"

"Mind," said Rigg, drawing out a bunch of keys, "if I ever see you
again, I shan't speak to you. I don't own you any more than if I saw a
crow; and if you want to own me you'll get nothing by it but a
character for being what you are--a spiteful, brassy, bullying rogue."

"That's a pity, now, Josh," said Raffles, affecting to scratch his head
and wrinkle his brows upward as if he were nonplussed. "I'm very fond
of you; _by_ Jove, I am! There's nothing I like better than plaguing
you--you're so like your mother, and I must do without it. But the
brandy and the sovereign's a bargain."

He jerked forward the flask and Rigg went to a fine old oaken bureau
with his keys. But Raffles had reminded himself by his movement with
the flask that it had become dangerously loose from its leather
covering, and catching sight of a folded paper which had fallen within
the fender, he took it up and shoved it under the leather so as to make
the glass firm.

By that time Rigg came forward with a brandy-bottle, filled the flask,
and handed Raffles a sovereign, neither looking at him nor speaking to
him. After lock