“Not much; he won’t go there unless he escapes.”
“It’s rough on the fellow, Mort, to run him off to sea, or to make him a prisoner in the bottom of a coal barge or canal boat. But that is what he is likely to get from that old shark,” said Peter Smartweed, meaning Gunwagner.
“Don’t you get soft hearted now,” replied Felix, in a hard voice.
“I’m not soft hearted, Mort, and you know it, but I don’t like this business, any way.”
“What did you go into it for, then?”
“What do we do anything for? I thought, from what you said, that he was a coarse young countryman. But he don’t seem like it. In fact I believe he is too nice a fellow to be ruined for life.”
“Perhaps you’d better get him out then,” said Mortimer, sarcastically.
“You talk like a fool,” replied Smartweed, testily.
“So do you,” retorted his companion, firing up; and he nursed his aching jaw as if to lend emphasis to his remarks. These explosions suddenly ended the discussion, and as soon as their shoes were polished, the two young villains left the saloon. Mortimer turned up the Bowery, and Smartweed passed into a side street leading towards Broadway.
Bob readily dropped his assumed character of bootblack, and quickly started in pursuit of Felix Mortimer.