"Why not say so little, instead of so much?" asked Tom, who, driven by necessity and despair, was coming out in a new light.
"The work you did I could have had done for a song——"
"The Lord forbid," said Tom, "that I should have heard you sing it! It would have given me the gripes. I've got 'em now."
"But I kept you on out of charity, and I told you that you were at liberty to earn money elsewhere whenever you could pick up an odd job."
"My experience is," he said, "that there's about five million evens to one odd."
"The result of my kindness and liberality is that you are as you are, an idle, skulking, thieving vagabond."
"Have you done?" asked Tom.
"Not yet. I have had a serious complaint made against you, and I intend to take notice of it in a practical way. You have threatened the life of my clerk, Mr. Jeremiah Pamflett, a most estimable young man, in whom I place implicit confidence. You lie in ambush for him, and he goes in terror of you."
"That's the best thing I've heard yet," said Tom Barley, rubbing his hands gleefully.
"Such a state of things is no longer to be endured, and I shall put an end to it. Tom Barley, I discharge you from my service."