brutus. “The sneak—to fail us at the pinch. I'll wring his neck round. What is this? five pounds.”
mephisto. “Don't you see the move? he won't give it us, conscience forbids; but, if we are such rogues as take it, no questions asked.”
“The tarnation hypocrite,” roared brutus, with disgust—hypocrisy was the one vice he was innocent of—out of jail, mephistopheles stole Crawley's money, left for that purpose, and went and bought a four-gallon cask of turpentine.
brutus remained and sharpened an old cutlass, the only weapon he had got left. Crawley and mephistopheles returned almost together. Crawley produced a bottle of brandy.
“Now,” said he to mephistopheles, “I don't dispute your ingenuity, my friend, but suppose while we have been talking the men have struck their tent and gone away, nugget and all?”
The pair looked terribly blank—what fools we were not to think of that.
Crawley kept them in pain a moment or two.
“Well, they have not,” said he, “I have been to look.”
“Well done,” cried mephistopheles.
“Well done,” cried brutus, gasping for breath.