"There's something I want to say to you," he said at last when he had exhausted himself a little. "You threatened me last night--actually had the audacity to threaten me, and to boast about what you had done, and what you might do again." "I did not threaten you--and I did not boast," I said slowly. "And I only told you that I was afraid--afraid of what I might do." "Well, that was a threat. You talked of killing a man--hinted that you might do it again. You know what I told you would happen if you gave me any trouble. I said I'd kick you into the gutter--and I'll do it. You can go to-day; get back to London, and shiver in its streets--sell matches or beg. I've done with you." "Not yet," I replied, shaking my head. "You will not get rid of me so easily as that, Mr. Olivant." He stared at me with a dropping jaw. "Why, what the devil do you mean?" "I mean that you will find it better to have me with you than against you," I said. "If you wanted an ordinary servant, you should have taken an ordinary man; you have taken me, who have nothing to lose, and who troubles nothing about what he may gain. Don't you understand," I asked impatiently, "that I have stood under the shadow of the gallows, with Death beckoning; what more have I to be afraid of? If you kick me into the gutter, as you term it, I shall only rise up again, and fight against you. More than that, I might do worse; I might kill you if you gave me too much trouble." I must say one thing for Murray Olivant; he had a sense of humour. He stared at me for a moment or two after I had finished speaking, and then sat down, and began to laugh. He laughed more and more as he let my words sink into his mind; and finally sat up and looked at me, shaking his head whimsically as he did so. "My word!--but you're a cool one!" he exclaimed. "So you think I'm not to shake you off--eh? I'm not to have a word to say about the matter; you're to play a sort of old-man-of-the-sea to my Sindbad, are you? Well, I think I like you for it--and I think you may be more useful because you have so little to lose. Only you mustn't threaten, and you mustn't get in my way again when I've a joke afoot. We'll say no more about it; we'll forget it." He got to his feet, and went striding about the room, laughing to himself as at some excellent jest. "You might even kill me! Oh, Lord--what a man I've saddled myself with, to be sure!" I stood still, waiting until he should have got over the fit of laughter that was upon him; I waited grimly for whatever other move might come. Presently he sidled up to me, and with his arms akimbo dug at me sideways with one elbow, and grinned into my face. "Protector of the poor, and the weak, and the helpless--eh?" he taunted. "A sort of elderly Cupid, setting out in the world fully equipped save for the wings. Tell me, Cupid--what plot is hatching? What are they going to do--these lovers?" "I didn't know they were lovers," I replied. "I thought _you'd_ seen to that."