The post arrived earlier than he had expected it, and this gave him time to lie and fret and listen again for the striking of the clock in the room downstairs. The waiting became too long, and as his fever increased he became insanely impatient and could not restrain himself. To lie and listen for his visitor’s footsteps upon the stairs—to lie until seven o’clock—if he did not come till then, would be more than he could endure. That would give him too long to think over what Linthicum would do if the whole sum were not forthcoming—to think of the reasons why the parson might make up his mind to treat the letters as if they were worthless. He lay and gnawed his finger-nails anew.
“I wouldn’t give nothin’ for ’em ef I was in his place,” he muttered. “Ef thar’d been anythin’ in ’em that proved anythin’ I should hev used ’em long sence. But then I’m a business man an’ he’s a parson, an’ doesn’t know nothin’ about the laws. But he might go to some man—say a man like Linthicum—who could put him up to things. Good Lord!” in a new panic, “he mayn’t come at all. He might jest stay away.”
He became so overwrought by this agonising possibility that instead of listening for the striking of the clock, he began to listen for the sound of some passing footstep—the footstep of someone passing by chance who might be sent to the parson with a note. With intolerable effort and suffering he managed to drag himself up and get hold of a piece of paper and a pencil to write the following lines:
“The letters hes come. You’d as well come an’ get ’em. Others will pay for ’em ef ye don’t want ’em yerself.”
His writing of the last sentence cheered his spirits. It was a support to his small, ignorant cunning. “He’ll think someone else is biddin’ agen him,” he said. “Ef there was two of ’em biddin’, I could get most anythin’ I axed.”
After he had put the communication in an envelope he dragged himself to the door almost bent double by the stabbing pain in his side. Once there he sat down on the floor to listen for footsteps.
“It’s hard work this yere,” he panted, shivering with cold in spite of his fever, “but it’s better than a-lyin’ thar doin’ nothin’.”
At length he heard steps. They were the running, stamping feet of a boy who whistled as he came.
Stamps opened the door and whistled himself—a whistle of summons and appeal. The boy, who was on his way with a message to another room, hesitated a minute and then came forward, staring at the sight of the little, undressed, shivering man with his head thrust into the passage.
“Hallo!” he said, “what d’yer want?”