“I put it all down in a book, sir,” said Quackinboss, sternly, “and I threw it in the fire the first night you read out Homer to me. I said to myself, 'You are well paid, Shaver, old fellow. You never knew how your heart could be shaken that way, and what brave feelings were lying there still, inside of it.'”
“Nay, dear friend, it is not thus I 'm to acquit my debt Even the moneyed one—”
“I tell you what, Layton,” said Quackinboss, rising, and striking the table with his clenched fist, “there's only one earthly way to part us, and that is by speaking to me of this. Once, and forever, I say to you, there's more benefit to a man like me to be your companion for a week, than for you to have toiled, and fevered, and sweated after gold, as I have done for thirty hard years.”
“Give me a day or two to think over it,” said Layton, “and I 'll tell you my resolve.”
“With all my heart! Only, I would ask you not to take my showing of its goodness, but to reason the thing well out of your own clear head. Many a just cause is lost by a bad lawyer; remember that” And thus the discussion ended for the time.
The following morning, when they met at breakfast, Layton took the other's hand, and said,—
“I 've thought all night of what you 've said, and I accept,—not without many a misgiving as regards myself, but I accept.”
“I'd not take ten thousand dollars for the engagement, sir,” said Quackinboss, as he wrung Layton's hand. “No, sir, I 'd not take it, for even four cities of the Union.”
Although thus the project was ratified between them, scarcely a day passed that Layton did not experience some compunction for his pledge. Now, it was a repugnance to the sort of enterprise he was about to engage in, the criticisms to which he was to expose himself, and the publicity he was to confront; nor could all his companion's sanguine assurances of success compensate him for his own heartfelt repugnance to try the ordeal.
“After all,” thought he, “failure, with all its pangs of wounded self-love, will only serve to show Quackinboss how deeply I feel myself his debtor when I am content to risk so much to repay him.”