"Pleasure to me! Nothing of the kind, I can assure you."
"Maryanne, if I might have my wish, it should be this. Let us both sit down, with our cigars lighted,—ay, and with tapers in our hands,—on an open barrel of gunpowder. Then let him who will sit there longest receive this fair hand as his prize." And as he finished, he leaned over her, and took up her hand in his.
"Laws, Robinson!" she said; but she did not on the moment withdraw her hand. "And if you were both blew up, what'd I do then?"
"I won't hear of such an arrangement," said Mr. Brown. "It would be very wicked. If there's another word spoke about it, I'll go to the police at once!"
On that occasion Mr. Brown was quite determined about the money; and, as we heard afterwards, Mr. Brisket expressed himself as equally resolute. "Of course, I expect to see my way," said he; "I can't do anything of that sort without seeing my way." When that overture about the gunpowder was repeated to him, he is reported to have become very red. "Either with gloves or without, or with the sticks, I'm ready for him," said he; "but as for sitting on a barrel of gunpowder, it's a thing as nobody wouldn't do unless they was in Bedlam."
When that interview was over, Robinson walked forth by himself into the evening air, along Giltspur Street, down the Old Bailey, and so on by Bridge Street, to the middle of Blackfriars Bridge; and as he walked, he strove manfully to get the better of the passion which was devouring the strength of his blood, and the marrow of his bones.
"If she be not fair for me," he sang to himself, "what care I how fair she be?" But he did care; he could not master that passion. She had been vile to him, unfeminine, untrue, coarsely abusive; she had shown herself to be mercenary, incapable of true love, a scold, fickle, and cruel. But yet he loved her. There was a gallant feeling at his heart that no misfortune could conquer him,—but one; that misfortune had fallen upon him,—and he was conquered.
"Why is it," he said as he looked down into the turbid stream—"why is it that bloodshed, physical strife, and brute power are dear to them all? Any fool can have personal bravery; 'tis but a sign of folly to know no fear. Grant that a man has no imagination, and he cannot fear; but when a man does fear, and yet is brave—" Then for awhile he stopped himself. "Would that I had gone at his throat like a dog!" he continued, still in his soliloquy. "Would that I had! Could I have torn out his tongue, and laid it as a trophy at her feet, then she would have loved me." After that he wandered slowly home, and went to bed.