"What do you mean?" asked Haldane, looking up with an uncomprehending stare. "Dis is vot I mean; you buts me off long nuff. I vants zwei weeks' bort." "I paid you for everything up to this morning, and I have had nothing since." "O, you have baid me--strange I did not know. Vill you bays now ven I does know?" "I tell you I have paid you!" said Haldane, starting up. "Vel, vell, show me der receipt, an I says not von vort against him." "You did not give me a receipt." "No, I thinks not--not my vay to give him till I gits de moneys." "You are an unmitigated scoundrel. I won't pay you another cent." "Lock dat door, Carl," said the landlord, coolly, to one of his satellites. "Now, Mister Haldane, you bays, or you goes to jail. You has been dare vonce, and I'll but you dare dis night if you no bays me." "Gentlemen, I appeal to you to prevent this downright villany," cried Haldane. "I sees no villany," said one of the lookers-on, stolidly. "You shows your receipt, and he no touch you." "I neglected to take a receipt. I did not know I was dealing with a thief." "Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the landlord; "he tinks I vas honest like himself, who vas jus' out of jail!" "I won't pay you twice," said Haldane doggedly. "Carl, call de policeman, den." "Wait a moment; your rascality will do you no good, and may get you into trouble. I have very little money left." "Den you can leave your vatch till you brings de money." "Ah, thank Heaven! that is safe, and beyond your clutches." "In a pawnshop? or vas he stolen, like de tousand dollar, and you been made give him up?" Haldane had now recovered himself sufficiently to realize that he was in an ugly predicament. He was not sufficiently familiar with the law to know how much power his persecutor had, but feared, with good reason, that some kind of a charge could be trumped up which would lead to his being locked up for the night. Then would follow inevitably another series of paragraphs in the papers, deepening the dark hues in which they had already portrayed his character. He could not endure the thought that the last knowledge of him that Laura carried away with her from Hillaton should be that he was again in jail, charged with trying to steal his board and lodging from a poor and ignorant foreigner; for he foresaw that the astute Shrumpf, his German landlord, would appear in the police court in the character of an injured innocent. He pictured the disgust upon her face as she saw his name in the vile connection which this new arraignment would occasion, and he felt that he must escape it if possible. Although enraged at Shrumpf's false charge, he was cool enough to remember that he had nothing to oppose to it save his own unsupported word; and what was that worth in Hillaton? The public would even be inclined to believe the opposite of what he affirmed. Therefore, by a great effort, he regained his self-control, and said firmly and quietly: