"Why do you walk like that?" asked Beau Brocade.
"I'm a feeble old man and rheumatic," whined Mittachip, despondently.
"Then 'twere better to ease the load out of your boot, friend. Sit down here and take it off."
And he pointed to a piece of boulder projecting through the shallow earth.
But this Master Mittachip seemed very loth to do.
"Kind sir..." he protested again.
"Sit down and take off the right boot!" repeated Beau Brocade more peremptorily, and with a gay laugh and mock threatening gesture he pointed the muzzle of his pistol at the terror-stricken attorney.
There was naught to do but to obey: and quickly too. Master Mittachip cursed the rascally highwayman under his breath, and even consigned him to eternal damnation, before he finally handed him up his boot.
Beau Brocade turned it over, shook it, and a bag of jingling guineas fell at Jack o' Lantern's feet.
"Give me that bag!"