"You're not the only man," said Seth, after a pause, "who's got that sort of feeling towards the child. Now, mind. I'm speaking to you calm and reasonable, first for your mother's sake, next for Sally's; I'm old enough to be your father, and it's for their sakes, not for your own, that I tell you you're on the wrong track. You go on drinking for another two or three years as you've been doing the last two or three, and, if I'm any judge of appearances, you'll wake up one fine morning and find yourself in a madhouse--which wouldn't matter a bit so long as your mother didn't know, for you're nothing as you are but a lump o' mischief. Well, I love that child in a way that makes me surprised at myself, and I mean to stand by her through life, and I don't mean to see her wronged. Feeling like that towards her, it isn't likely that I'm going to let you step in between us, and poison her against me and Sally. You've opened your mind to me, and I've opened mine to you. I'll open it farther. You trick my child away again, and I'll have you sent across the water for stealing the boots from my stall. If I don't, may I be struck down dead where I stand! There--that's the first strong oath I've taken since I was a young man, when I used to swear a bit." Stupefied by fear, and entirely dominated by the strong will of Seth Dumbrick, Ned Chester waited in impotent rage for what was to follow. "Now for my proposition. You've got a lucky mole on your forehead----" Ned Chester with a bewildered air raised his hand to the hitherto luckless possession. "--And that mole's going to lead you to fortune, your mother's told me. What if I show you the way?" He took a piece of a newspaper from his pocket. "Here's an account of gold, in great lumps, being found in Australia. If you were there, with your mole, you'd be the luckiest man in the mines." Ned Chester jumped up in excitement. "Of course I should. If I was there! But how to get there! A poor beggar like me!" He pulled out the lining of his empty pockets with a distracted air. "There are ships going away from the docks every week for the mines. Go and get shipped as a sailor. If not as a sailor, as something else. There's the gold waiting for you to pick it up. If a matter of three pound'll get you off, I've got that much saved, and you shall have it. I'll give it to get rid of you, and for the sake of your mother and Sally----" "And the Duchess," added Ned, somewhat maliciously. "And the Duchess; you're right; so that you shan't worry the life out of us. I don't intend to say another word but this. When you come to me and say you're going, I'll give you the three pound the day the ship sails out of the Docks. And if you are not gone in less than a fortnight--well, just you imagine that I'm taking that oath over again--I'll have the handcuffs put on you and make an end of you."