“I tell you, for the third time,” he said, “I will listen to no expressions of gratitude from you till I know when I deserve them. It is true that I recollect your father’s timely kindness to me--true that I have not forgotten what passed, five years since at your house by the river-side. I remember everything, down to what you would consider the veriest trifle--that cup of coffee, for instance, which your sister kept hot for me. I told you then that you would think better of me some day. I know that you do now. But this is not all. You want to glorify me to my face for risking my life for you. I won’t hear you, because my risk is of the paltriest kind. I am weary of my life. I can’t look back to it with pleasure. I am too old to look forward to what is left of it with hope. There was something in that night at your house before the wedding--something in what you said, in what your sister did--which altered me. I have had my days of gloom and self-reproach, from time to time, since then. I have sickened at my slavery, and subjection, and duplicity, and cringing, first under one master then under another. I have longed to look back at my life, and comfort myself with the sight of some good action, just as a frugal man comforts himself with the sight of his little savings laid by in an old drawer. I can’t do this, and I want to do it. The want takes me like a fit, at uncertain intervals--suddenly, under the most incomprehensible influences. A glance up at the blue sky--starlight over the houses of this great city, when I look out at the night from my garret window--a child’s voice coming suddenly, I don’t know where from--the piping of my neighbor’s linnet in his little cage--now one trifling thing, now another--wakes up that want in me in a moment. Rascal as I am, those few simple words your sister spoke to the judge went through and through me like a knife. Strange, in a man like me, isn’t it? I am amazed at it myself. _My_ life? Bah! I’ve let it out for hire to be kicked about by rascals from one dirty place to another, like a football! It’s my whim to give it a last kick myself, and throw it away decently before it lodges on the dunghill forever. Your sister kept a good cup of coffee hot for me, and I give her a bad life in return for the compliment. You want to thank me for it? What folly! Thank me when I have done something useful. Don’t thank me for that!” He snapped his fingers contemptuously as he spoke, and walked away to the outer door to receive the jailer, who returned at that moment. “Well,” inquired the hunchback, “has anybody asked for me?” “No,” answered Lomaque; “not a soul has entered the room. What sort of wine did you get?” “So-so! Good at a pinch, friend--good at a pinch.” “Ah! you should go to my shop and try a certain cask, filled with a particular vintage.” “What shop? Which vintage?”