devil agin me, I'll be paid for it--I'll be paid for it--I'll
be paid for it--till I've drained you dry!'

Bradley looked at the fire, with a working face, and was silent for a
while. At last he said, with what seemed an inconsistent composure of
voice and feature:

'You can't get blood out of a stone, Riderhood.'

'I can get money out of a schoolmaster though.'

'You can't get out of me what is not in me. You can't wrest from me what
I have not got. Mine is but a poor calling. You have had more than two
guineas from me, already. Do you know how long it has taken me (allowing
for a long and arduous training) to earn such a sum?'

'I don't know, nor I don't care. Yours is a 'spectable calling. To
save your 'spectability, it's worth your while to pawn every article of
clothes you've got, sell every stick in your house, and beg and borrow
every penny you can get trusted with. When you've done that and handed
over, I'll leave you. Not afore.'

'How do you mean, you'll leave me?'

'I mean as I'll keep you company, wherever you go, when you go away from
here. Let the Lock take care of itself. I'll take care of you, once I've
got you.'

Bradley again looked at the fire. Eyeing him aside, Riderhood took up
his pipe, refilled it, lighted it, and sat smoking. Bradley leaned his
elbows on his knees, and his head upon his hands, and looked at the fire
with a most intent abstraction.

'Riderhood,' he said, raising himself in his chair, after a long
silence, and drawing out his purse and putting it on the table. 'Say
I part with this, which is all the money I have; say I let you have
my watch; say that every quarter, when I draw my salary, I pay you a
certain portion of it.'

'Say nothink of the sort,' retorted Riderhood, shaking his head as he
smoked. 'You've got away once, and I won't run the chance agin. I've had
trouble enough to find you, and shouldn't have found you, if I hadn't
seen you slipping along the street overnight, and watched you till you
was safe housed. I'll have one settlement with you for good and all.'

'Riderhood, I am a man who has lived a retired life. I have no resources
beyond myself. I have absolutely no friends.'

'That's a lie,' said Riderhood. 'You've got one friend as I knows of;
one as is good for a Savings-Bank book, or I'm a blue monkey!'

Bradley's face darkened, and his hand slowly closed on the purse and
drew it back, as he sat listening for what the other should go on to
say.

'