“Upon my word you really amuse me,” said the gentleman. “I thought the time was past for footpads or highway robbers, but we live and learn, it would appear. Unhand me.”
“Not until you have given me what I demand.”
“If I summon a policeman and hand you over to justice, which, to say the truth is my duty, you will be severely punished, but as you are starving, according to your own account—”
“I am dying with hunger, and don’t care about being sent to prison. It’s preferable to dying like a dog in the streets.”
“I will take compassion on you. This is something like an adventure. Again, I say take your hand from my coat. I will assist you. There, will that satisfy you?”
“It will,” observed the gipsy, in a softened tone; “for once I have met with one who has compassion on a fellow-creature.”
“You would not be very scrupulous, I suppose, in rendering services for kindness received—eh?” inquired the gentleman.
“Scrupulous!—well no, not very.”
“I should imagine not.”
“A starving man is not likely to be over particular,” said the gipsy, laughing bitterly, and looking attentively at the face of his questioner.