Glanville, who was lived with ill-suppressed rage, rose haughtily.
“Mr. Thornton,” he said, in a calm voice, although he was trembling in his extreme passion, from head to foot, “I am not now prepared to submit to your insolence and intrusion. You will leave this room instantly. If you have any further demands upon me, I will hear them to-night at any hour you please to appoint.”
“No, no, my fine fellow,” said Thornton, with a coarse chuckle; “you have as much wit as three folks, two fools, and a madman; but you won’t do me, for all that. The instant my back is turned, your’s will be turned too; and by the time I call again, your honour will be half way to Calais. But—bless my stars, Mr. Pelham, is that you? I really did not see you before; I suppose you are not in the secret?”
“I have no secrets from Mr. Pelham,” said Glanville; “nor do I care if you discuss the whole of your nefarious transactions with me in his presence. Since you doubt my word, it is beneath my dignity to vindicate it, and your business can as well be dispatched now, as hereafter. You have heard rightly, that I intend leaving England to-morrow; and now, Sir, what is your will?”
“By G—d, Sir Reginald Glanville!” exclaimed Thornton, who seemed stung to the quick by Glanville’s contemptuous coldness, “you shall not leave England without my leave. Ay, you may frown, but I say you shall not; nay, you shall not budge a foot from this very room unless I cry, ‘Be it so!’”
Glanville could no longer restrain himself. He would have sprung towards Thornton, but I seized and arrested him. I read, in the malignant and incensed countenance of his persecutor, all the danger to which a single imprudence would have exposed him, and I trembled for his safety.
I whispered, as I forced him again to his seat, “Leave me alone to settle with this man, and I will endeavour to free you from him.” I did not tarry for his answer; but turning to Thornton, said to him coolly but civilly: “Sir Reginald Glanville has acquainted me with the nature of your very extraordinary demands upon him. Did he adopt my advice, he would immediately place the affair in the hands of his legal advisers. His ill health, however, his anxiety to leave England, and his wish to sacrifice almost every thing to quiet, induce him, rather than take this alternative, to silence your importunities, by acceding to claims, however illegal and unjust. If, therefore, you now favour Sir Reginald with your visit, for the purpose of making a demand previous to his quitting England, and which, consequently, will be the last to which he will concede, you will have the goodness to name the amount of your claim, and should it be reasonable, I think Sir Reginald will authorize me to say, that it shall be granted.”
“Well, now!” cried Thornton, “that’s what I call talking like a sensible man; and though I am not fond of speaking to a third person, when the principal is present, yet as you have always been very civil to me, I have no objection to treating with you. Please to give Sir Reginald this paper: if he will but take the trouble to sign it, he may go to the Falls of Niagara for me! I won’t interrupt him—so he had better put pen to paper, and get rid of me at once, for I know I am as welcome as snow in harvest.”
I took the paper, which was folded up, and gave it to Glanville, who leant back on his chair, half-exhausted by his rage. He glanced his eye over it, and then tore it into a thousand pieces, and trampled it beneath his feet: “Go!” exclaimed he, “go, rascal, and do your worst! I will not make myself a beggar to enrich you. My whole fortune would but answer this demand.”
“Do as you please, Sir Reginald,” answered Thornton, grinning, “do as you please. It’s not a long walk from hence to Bow-street, nor a long swing from Newgate to the gallows; do as you please, Sir Reginald, do as you please!” and the villain flung himself at full length on the costly ottoman, and eyed Glanville’s countenance with an easy and malicious effrontery, which seemed to say, “I know you will struggle, but you cannot help yourself.”