Great Britain -- History -- George III, 1760-1820 -- Fiction; Mystery fiction
"If I was to go, there'd be a regular wreck, and I shouldn't get a penny
of my back wages. If I stay, he may get them two well married, and then
there'd be money in the house. Better stay. Lor', if people only knew
all I could tell 'em about this house, and the scraping, and putting off
bills, and the troubles with Miss May and the two boys, and--"
Isaac drew a long breath and turned rather white.
"I feel sometimes as if I ought to make a clean breast of it, but I
don't like to. He isn't such a bad sort, when you come to know him, but
that--ugh!"
He shuddered, and began to rattle the knives and forks upon the table,
giving one a rub now and then on his shabby livery.
"It's a puzzler," he said, stopping short, after breathing in a glass,
and giving it a rub with a cloth. "Some day, I suppose, there'll be a
difference, and he'll be flush of money. I suppose he daren't start
yet. Suppose I--No; that wouldn't do. He'll pay all the back, then,
and I might--"
Isaac shuddered again, and muttered to himself in a very mysterious way.
Then, all at once:
"Why, I might cry halves, and make him set me up for life. Why not?
She was good as gone, and--"
He set down the glass, and wiped the dew that had gathered off his brow,
looking whiter than before, for just then a memory had come into Isaac's
mental vision--it was a horrible recollection of having been tempted to
go and see the execution of a murderer at the county town, and this
man's accomplice was executed a month later.
"Accomplice" was an ugly word that seemed to force itself into Isaac's
mind, and he shook his head and hurriedly finished laying the cloth.
"Let him pay me my wages, all back arrears," he said. "Perhaps there is
a way of selling a secret without being an accomplice, but I don't know,
and--oh, I couldn't do it. It would kill that poor girl, who's about
worried to death with the dreadful business, without there being
anything else."
Volume One, Chapter XXIV.
PRESSED FOR MONEY.
As a rule, a tailor is one who will give unlimited credit so long as his
client is a man of society, with expectations, and the maker of garments
can charge his own prices; but Stuart Denville, Esq, MC, of Saltinville,
paid a visit to his tailor to find that gentleman inexorable.
"No, Mr Denville, sir, it ain't to be done. I should be glad to fit
out the young man, as he should be fitted out as a gentleman, sir; but
there is bounds to everything."
"Exactly, my dear Mr Ping, but I can assure you that before long both
his and my accounts shall be paid."
"No, sir, can't do it. I'm very busy, too. Why not try Crowder and
Son?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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