“I--both of us, if you please, old fellow: we’re in the same box. The captain--and one of the chief members of the gang. That’s how they’ve got us down, recollect. You never knew you were a chief member before--eh, Rob? But I don’t like that sort of fun. I like to hunt, not to be hunted, my boy. And I’m very tired of lying low. Let’s make a run somewhere--eh? I like the feeling of the money that should be in another man’s pocket tumbling into my own.” “It’ll not do--it’ll not do, Lew, here; I won’t have it,” cried Robbie, getting up from his supper and pacing about the room. “I never could bear that part of it, you know. It seems something different in a wild country, where you never know whose the money may be--got by gambling, and cheating, and all that, and kind of lawful to take it back again. No, not here. I’ll give myself up, and you too, before I consent to that.” “I’ve got a bit of a toy here that will have something to say to it if any fellow turns out a sneak,” said Lew, with that movement towards his pocket which Mrs Ogilvy did not understand. “Does this look like turning out a sneak?” said Robbie, looking round with a wave of his hand. “You’ve been here nearly a month: has any one ever said you were not welcome? Keep your toys to yourself, Lew. Two can play at that game; but toys or no toys, I’m not with you, and I won’t follow you here. Oh, d---- it, _here!_ where there’s such a thing as honesty, and a man’s money is his own!” “My good fellow,” said the other, “but for information which you haven’t to give, and which I could get at any little tavern I turned into, what good are you? You never were any that I know of. You were always shaking your head. You didn’t mind, so far as I can remember, taking a share of the profits; but as for doing anything to secure them! I can work without you, thank you, if I take it into my head.” “I hope you won’t take it into your head,” said Robbie, coming back to the table and resuming his chair. “Why should you, when I tell you I can get anything out of my mother? And with right too,” he continued, “for I should have been sure to spend it all had I been at home; and she only saved it because I was not here. Therefore the money’s justly mine by all rules. It isn’t that I should like to see you start without me, Lew, or that I wouldn’t take my share, whatever--whatever you might wish to do. But what’s the good, when you can get it, and begged to accept it, all straight and square close at hand?” “For a squeamish fellow you’ve got a good stiff conscience, Bob,” said Lew, with a laugh. “I like that idea,--that though it’s bad with an old fogey trotting home from market, it ain’t the same with your mother. In that way it would be less of a privilege than folks would think to be near relations to you and me, eh? I’ve got none, heaven be praised! so I can’t practise upon ’em. But you, my chicken! that the good lady waits up for at nights, that she would like to tie to her apron-strings----”