"That, Mr. Mist," announced his dictator, "is the only way to keep yourself from a jail, and to secure the advantages which now rise to you from it; for you may be assured the complaint against you is so general that the Government can bear it no longer."[[6]]
"Would you mind telling me from whom you speak, Sir?" Mr. Mist meekly wished to know.
"I should mind it very much, Mr. Mist. Be satisfied that you have been spoken to—ay, and warned."
Mr. Mist was fully convinced of that.
"You will write, Mr. Mist, a declaration, full enough to satisfy the Government, of your intention to make no further attack upon them?"
Mr. Mist would do anything he was told. The poor little mouse was entirely at the mercy of the lion. He withdrew to pen his declaration, and left the arch-conspirators together.
"You see, Mr. Stevens, what difficulties we Government spies have to contend with!" sighed the author of Robinson Crusoe. "But you know that, of course, as well as I do."
"'Bowing in the House of Rimmon,'" responded Stevens, with a peculiar smile. "I fancy the spies on the other side have their difficulties also."
In which observation, though De Foe was completely unaware of it, Mr. Stevens was alluding to himself.
"'Bowing in the House of Rimmon!'" repeated De Foe. "I thank you, Mr. Stevens, for so apt a comparison. You see, Sir, I am for this service posted among Papists, Jacobites, and High Tories—a generation which my very soul abhors. I am obliged to hear traitorous expressions and outrageous words against Her Majesty's person and Government and her most faithful servants, and to smile at it all as if I approved of it."