“A note, sir; and although it never issued from the Bank, one not without value!”
The captain became deadly pale; he made one step towards the door, and in a low voice of ill-restrained anger said, “I'll have you searched, sirrah! If anything belonging to me is found upon you—”
“No fear, sir,” said I, composedly; “I have taken precautions against that; the note is safe!”
He threw himself upon a chair, and stared at me steadily for some minutes without a word. There we were, each scanning the other, and inwardly calculating how to win the game we were playing.
“Well,” said he, at last; “what are your terms? You see I give in.”
“And so best,” said I; “it saves time. I ask very little from your honor,—nothing more, in fact, than to have this charge dismissed. I don't mean to wear rags all my life, and consort with vagabonds, and so I dislike to have it said hereafter that I was ever arraigned or committed for an offence like this. You must tell the justice that it was some blunder or mistake of your orders to me; some accidental circumstance or other,—I don't much care what, or how; nor will he, if the explanation comes from you! This done, I 'll place the note in your hand within half an hour, and we need never see much more of each other.”
“But who is to secure me that you keep your promise?”
“You must trust to me,” said I, carelessly; “I have no bail to give.”
“Why not return now, with the policeman, for the note, before I speak to the justice?”
“Then who is to go bail for you?” said I, smiling.