"I did find it out at the time; and I went two days afterwards to the pawnbroker's where you pledged them, and made certain. The pawnbroker'll swear to you; I'll swear to the boots. It's a Botany Bay job, as clear as sunlight. You're fiddling with your fingers in your waistcoat pocket. You've got the ticket there. What do you say to that now, for a move?"
"Why," stammered Ned, growing very white about the lips, "can't a man buy a pawn-ticket, and--and----"
"It will be best for me to do the talking, Ned Chester. I shall get along better than you. The reason that I didn't come straight after you at the time was that I thought of the mother who loves you. That's why I spared you then; for your mother's sake, not for your own. I suspect it's out of spite against me that you are trying to trick the little Duchess from me and Sally----"
"No," interrupted Ned Chester, the colour coming into his face again; "it's chiefly out of love for her. Look here," he cried, bursting into tears, "I can't tell you what it is that makes me so fond of her, but I'm a different man when she's with me than when she's not. I've spent my last penny on her this very day, and I don't know what to do for a drink. She's got a face like an angel, and--and----"
But his voice trailed off here, and he paused, as much amazed himself at his involuntary outburst as was Seth Dumbrick, who had listened to it without interruption.
"You're not the only man," said Seth, after a pause, "who's got that sort of feeling towards the child. Now, mind. I'm speaking to you calm and reasonable, first for your mother's sake, next for Sally's; I'm old enough to be your father, and it's for their sakes, not for your own, that I tell you you're on the wrong track. You go on drinking for another two or three years as you've been doing the last two or three, and, if I'm any judge of appearances, you'll wake up one fine morning and find yourself in a madhouse--which wouldn't matter a bit so long as your mother didn't know, for you're nothing as you are but a lump o' mischief. Well, I love that child in a way that makes me surprised at myself, and I mean to stand by her through life, and I don't mean to see her wronged. Feeling like that towards her, it isn't likely that I'm going to let you step in between us, and poison her against me and Sally. You've opened your mind to me, and I've opened mine to you. I'll open it farther. You trick my child away again, and I'll have you sent across the water for stealing the boots from my stall. If I don't, may I be struck down dead where I stand! There--that's the first strong oath I've taken since I was a young man, when I used to swear a bit."
Stupefied by fear, and entirely dominated by the strong will of Seth Dumbrick, Ned Chester waited in impotent rage for what was to follow.
"Now for my proposition. You've got a lucky mole on your forehead----"
Ned Chester with a bewildered air raised his hand to the hitherto luckless possession.
"--And that mole's going to lead you to fortune, your mother's told me. What if I show you the way?" He took a piece of a newspaper from his pocket. "Here's an account of gold, in great lumps, being found in Australia. If you were there, with your mole, you'd be the luckiest man in the mines."