Away we went at hundred-yards' speed, he leading by about ten paces, and for about fifty yards it was anybody's race. Then I began to gain, and, seeing this, the fellow threw something down and ran on; he careered for another half hundred paces and then ridded himself of something else; and I, fearing, if I continued the pursuit, to lose my chance of recovering the old man's property—which, I rightly conjectured, was what the fellow had relieved himself of—stopped to pick it up while I could. I thus allowed my friend to escape, which was, of course, what he most desired at the moment, even more than the possession of the pocket-book and the gold watch which I soon found in the road and recovered.
Then I returned to the spot where I had left my fallen foe and the old gentleman whose property had been the original cause of disagreement between the contending parties.
CHAPTER II
THE OLD MISER
I found my ally beating the prostrate enemy with his umbrella, and still using language which would have been unseemly in any person, and sounded doubly shocking in the mouth of an old man.
"Come," I said, "you needn't swear, sir; and I wouldn't continue to whack a man who is down, if I were you."
"Kill him! kill him—the cowardly rascal! Kick him on the head and kill him!" shrieked the infuriated old gentleman; "they have robbed me between them, and I'll have his life for it! I'm a poor man, and they've taken my all; kick him in the head, if you're a man, and kill him!"
I could not help laughing. "It's because I'm a man that I shall do nothing of the kind," I said. "Stop dabbing at him with your umbrella and attend to business; here's your property—take it." I presented him with his pocket-book and watch as I spoke, and never did I behold so complete a metamorphosis in the expression of a man's face as now passed over his. He seized his property with both hands and hugged it to his breast. He beamed and chuckled over it, mumbling inarticulate words of delight as he fondly drew forth a bundle of notes and counted them.
It struck me that here was a considerable sum of money for a poor man to carry about with him; for though he jealously hid from me the figures that would have revealed the value of the notes, I was able to observe that there were at least fifteen or twenty of these, which, even supposing them to have been mere "rivers," would represent a decidedly respectable sum. The old fellow observed me watching him.
"Private papers, private papers!" he muttered; "letters from my dead wife that I would not lose for their weight in diamonds!"