He was disturbed, not expecting so cheerful an acquiescence. Did the rascal think I should beg him to stay?
"When I pay for the food I have had this week," he whined, "I shall have nothing left."
"Do I owe you anything? I thought it was the other way--or have I been dreaming all these years?"
"You do not strictly owe me anything but you surely do not wish to thrust me on the world in a state of beggary!"
"It is not I who thrust you on the world it is your own deliberate act, my worthy Gideon, and your plans to better yourself are already laid. However, your appeal shall not be made in vain. I will deal, not justly, but generously, towards you." I opened my safe, and took therefrom a packet containing coins. "I am going to make you a present of twenty-eight florins." His eyes glistened, and he held out his eager hand. "All bad ones, Gideon, every one of them! But I am not responsible for that, it is your affair. Among them you will find, with a date scratched on them, two false florins you brought to me this day four weeks as having been paid to you by Strauss the butcher, for repairs done to his watch."
"He gave them to me!" cried Gideon, turning very white. His limbs trembled; he was in mortal fear, "With his own hands he gave them to me."
"And you gave them to me. Go to Strauss, and inform him that he deals in bad money, for you will find in this packet three other false florins which you brought to me from him four months ago--you will see the date on them--in payment for a pair of silver ear-rings he bought for his little daughter. Go to Strauss, Gideon, go to him. He was never known to rob even the rich, and if you succeed in convincing him that he gave you the five bad florins, he will give you five good ones in exchange for them. He will do it, Gideon, without a murmur, for naturally he will be desirous to keep such a transaction very quiet. There is also another bad coin you brought to me from Rosenblatt the clothes-mender. Perhaps he found it in an old coat he was patching. There are seven others in a batch--mere bits of lead, Gideon--which you brought to me from Philip Adler the rabbi, in payment of a long-standing account. Philip Adler is a charitable man, and much loved. Go to him, and acquaint him with this sad business; he will not see you wronged."
"It is a plot!" gasped Gideon. "You wish to ruin me; you wish to take away my character."
"Let us not speak of plots," I said, and here my voice grew stern. "Let us not speak of taking characters away. Every florin in this packet I received direct from your hands, and I have kept a faithful record of them. You will be glad to receive them back, for it is not a pleasant matter; it is, indeed, as you are well aware, a most dangerous matter. We live in evil times, Gideon, and one needs to be very, very careful in his dealings. Beware of rogues and backbiters; avoid bad company; speak always the truth; do not malign your benefactors; do not play cards with the devil; and do not betray the innocent. Fare you well, Gideon Wolf."
His tongue was afflicted with a kind of St. Vitus's dance as he endeavored to explain that he was innocent of this dangerous passing of bad money for good. I sat back in my chair, and did not assist him out of his tangle of words, I listened in silence, and when his tongue had run itself down, like an ill-regulated watch, I bade him farewell once more, and shut my door upon him.