"You don't;—don't you?"
"No, I don't," said the Captain stoutly.
"I wish you'd pay me some of that money you owe me," said Cheesacre.
"So I will,—when I've married the widow. Ha,—ha,—ha."
Cheesacre longed to turn him out of the house. Words to bid him go, were, so to say, upon his tongue. But the man would only have taken himself to Norwich, and would have gone without any embargo upon his suit; all their treaties would then be at an end. "She knows a trick worth two of that," said Cheesacre at last.
"I dare say she does; and if so, why shouldn't I go and dine with her next Saturday?"
"I'll tell you why,—because you're in my way. The deuce is in it if I haven't made the whole thing clear enough. I've told you all my plans because I thought you were my friend, and I've paid you well to help me, too; and yet it seems to me you'd do anything in your power to throw me over,—only you can't."
"What an ass you are," said the Captain after a pause; "just you listen to me. That scraggy young woman, Charlie Fairstairs, is to be there of course."
"How do you know?"
"I tell you that I do know. She was present when the whole thing was arranged, and I heard her asked, and heard her say that she would come;—and for the matter of that I heard her declare that she wouldn't set her cap at you, because you're a farmer."