"I found little Maurice asleep in the wood. I have him safe. You can have him back whenever you pleases." "I must have little Maurice. Take me to him at once," said Joe in a desperate tone. "Softly, softly, lad! You shall have the little chap back. No harm shall happen to him. You and the little gal can have him again. Only one thing: I must have that ere purse first." "Oh! ain't you a wicked man?" said Joe, and now he flung himself full length on the grass, and burst into bitter lamentations. "Oh! ain't you the wickedest man in all the wide world, Anton? Cecile 'ull die ef she can't get little Maurice back again. Cecile 'ull die ef she loses that purse." Joe repeated these words over many times; in truth the poor boy was almost in a transport of grief and despair. Anton, however, made no reply whatever to this great burst of terrible sorrow, and waited quietly until the paroxysm had spent itself, then he too sat down on the grass. "Listen, Joe," he said. "'Tis no use a-blubbering afore me, or a-screaming hout afore me. Them things affects some folks, but they never takes no rises out o' me. I may be 'ard. Likely enough I am. Hanyhow hysterics don't go down with me. Joe Barnes--as that's the name wot you was known by in England--I'm _determined_ to get that 'ere purse. Now listen. Wot I has to say is short; wot I has to say is plain; from wot I has now got to say--I'll never go back. I lay three plans afore you, Joe Barnes. You can choose wot one you like best. The first plan is this: as you and Cecile keeps the purse, and I takes Maurice away wid me; you never see Maurice, nor hears of him again; I sell him to yer old master whose address I has in my pocket. That's the first plan. The second plan is this: that Maurice comes back to his sister, and _you_ comes wid me, Joe. I sells you once more to yer hold master, and he keeps yer _tight_, and you has no more chance of running away. This seems a sensible plan, and that 'ere little Cecile, as you sets sech store by, can keep her purse and her brother too. Ef you does this, Joe Barnes, there'll be no fear of Cecile dying--that's my second plan. But the third plan's the best of all. You can get that 'ere purse of gold. You get it, or tell me where to find it, and then you shall have Maurice back. Within one hour Maurice shall be with you, and you shall stay wid Cecile and Maurice, and I'll never, never trouble you no more. I calls the last the neatest plan of all, lad. Don't you?" Joe said nothing; his head was buried in his hands. Anton, however, saw that he was listening. "The last is the sensible plan," he said; and he laid his hand on the lad's shoulder. Joe started as though an adder had stung him. He threw off the defiling hand, and moved some paces away.