“I greatly fear so, sir. This quite unexpected development largely facilitates what might have been otherwise a prolonged and tiresome business, and we can’t afford to let you go. I will be frankness itself, Mr. Tuke; and we really can’t afford it, sir.” “And I will imitate your candour, and ask what the devil you, a common thief, mean by asking a gentleman for his parole?” “Rash blood, sir--hot, rash blood. I was older than you before I learnt to pick my words. But, without that little one of yours, I much fear that I shall be unable to relieve you of this temporary inconvenience.” “Why, zounds, Mr. Fern! You are here in force, it seems--a dozen or more blazing cut-throats to keep the cage.” “Honest fellows and well to be trusted, sir. At the same time you are noted for being a gentleman of daring and resource (I must really make you that acknowledgment), and far be it from me to risk the least of those scenes of violence that my soul abhors.” “Botany Bay has made you squeamish, it appears. Have you buried the hatchet with which you killed Cutwater?” Mr. Fern shrugged up his hands deprecatingly. “It pains me,” he said gently, “to hear a repetition of that old slander at this date.” “What! you didn’t murder the miserable rogue, and help to string him up afterwards?” “Such an old slander, sir; and is the age of reason never to be forgiven its youthful peccadilloes?” “Oh! I cry you mercy, Mr. Fern. If this was a peccadillo, I can understand your abhorring violence.” “Harkee! Mr. Tuke. I don’t say I would have withheld my men from their just resentment; but that I took no active part in it is the truth.” “What sucking infants, to be sure, are you and your schoolmaster! I shall believe just this--that Cutwater stabbed himself in twenty places and then jumped his neck into the chains. But--to be candid again, Mr. Fern--what an unperspicacious rascal you must have been to kill your goose with the golden eggs.” “Sir, there is one crime that, to my mind, cries to heaven above all others for vengeance, and that is treachery on the part of a confederate. What was I to hesitate, if I was chosen the minister of a divine retribution? And now, by your leave, we will come to business.” “What can there possibly be of that between us?” “A little, sir--a little. The question of ransom, for instance.” “Ransom--ransom? in the matter of a few hundreds of yards of drive?” “What is that to the point? One may lie in Newgate and only three feet of wall separate him from free pavement.” “Very pertinently put; and you have all the advantage of knowing. But, do you seriously propose, as a sane man, Mr. Fern, to place, at this end of the eighteenth century, a gentleman’s private house under siege?” “I am bound to confess I do.” “Well, you have your plans, I presume, that you are not likely to acquaint me of.”