"You old humbug!" I thought; "if ever you had a wife you starved her, I'll bet."
But the condition of our prostrate enemy began to give me some anxiety, and I was obliged to transfer my attention from the old miser to him. He lay groaning and snoring, his eyes shut, and his nose still bleeding a little. Suddenly he opened his eyes slightly and looked at the old man and at me. He scowled as he saw me, but his lips muttered "Water!"
"Go and fetch the man some water—you, sir," I said; "you can finish counting your notes afterwards. I would go, but I dare not leave him with you."
"Water for the rogue that robbed me? Not I," said the old fellow; "let him lie and rot first!"
"Then I will go," I said, for positively the rogue looked like expiring, and I was really anxious for him. If he were actually as bad as he looked there was not much danger in leaving him. I knew of a duck-pond near a farmhouse close by, and towards this I proceeded at my best speed, for the fellow must not be allowed to die—rascal though he undoubtedly was.
The rascal, it appeared, had no intention of dying, however, just at present; for when I returned with water from the duck-pond, he had departed, and departed—as I gathered—in company with the old gentleman's pocket-book, for its owner sat on the grass evidently dazed, nursing a portion of the porte-monnaie, for which, I suppose, he had made a good fight, if the jagged and torn appearance of the remnant was any indication of a struggle.
I could see our friend careering down the lane, some distance away, towards Thornton Heath, well out of reach of pursuit, and I was straining my eyes after him in hopes of marking him down somewhere, when the old miser behind me suddenly interrupted my reflections by bursting anew into a paroxysm of abuse and bad language, which threw even his previous excursions into the shade.
Whether I or the thief, or both of us, were the objects of his frenzy was not very apparent, for his vituperations were incoherent and inarticulate; but I gathered presently that I was at least in part responsible for the disaster, for he inquired, with many added flowers of speech, why I had been so foolish as to go for water and leave him with a cold-blooded ruffian who had robbed a poor old man of his entire fortune.
I was sorry for the unfortunate victim to my ill-judged humanity, and did my best to soothe him.
"You must stop the notes at once," I said; "and as for the fellow himself, why, we'll describe him to the police and identify him in no time; we shall get your money back, never fear."