“I’ll give it! I’ll give it! What fearful extravagance! My God! put it out!”
“Pay me five dollars at once,” said the other.
“Here it is—here it is!” and he jerked, in his excitement, from his pocket, a dozen gold-pieces of that value, and dashed them upon the table.
“Take your five dollars! put it out!”
The young man quietly swept the pieces within his reach into a drawer, which he at the same moment opened; and, extinguishing the margin of the manuscript, which had burned slowly from its thickness, he replied deliberately to the Professor, who had shrieked out—
“Do you mean to rob me?”
“No, sir! but I mean to keep this money, and if you approach me, I shall destroy this manuscript if it cost me my life. You have starved and outraged me long enough; you expect to make a fortune off my labors, and kill me with famine just as my work is done. But with all my humility, abstraction and patience, this is too much! I am roused at last, in self-defence, and you shall find it so!”
The Professor sank into a chair as if fainting, and for some moments continued to mutter, with more than the magnanimity of a sick kitten—
“To think! Robbed! All my generosity! The ruffian! Here, to my very face! What have I gained by saving him?”
This last expression was gasped out, as if the vital breath of the speaker was passing in the final spasm.