"If they should ketch me and set me in the pillory, Van Dorn, for what you do to-night, hya! spitch!"—he slashed his knees—"it would break Mrs. Clark's heart."
"I want this money to-night," said Van Dorn, "to make two young people happy. They shall take my portion, and take me with them out of the plains of Puckem."
"Oh, it is nervous business"—Clark's eyes of rich jelly made the pallor on his large face like a winding-sheet—"hya! spitch! The Quakers are a-watchin' me. Ole Zekiel Jinkins over yer, ole Warner Mifflin down to the mill, these durned Hunns at the Wildcat—they look me through every time they ketch me on the road. But the canawl contract don't pay like niggers; my folks must hold their heads up in the world; Sam Ogg won't let me keep out of temptation."
"Do you fear me, Devil Jim?"
"Hya! spitch! No. If all in the trade was like you, I could sleep in trust. If you go out of it, so will I."
"Then to-night, peniténte! we make our few thousand and quit. Give up your cards and I my doncellitas, and we can at least live."
They shook hands and drank another glass, and then Van Dorn said:
"Send up to me, hermano! the lad who will reply to the name of Levin. With him I would speak while you give the directions! Poor coward!" Van Dorn said, after his host had descended the stairs, "he can never be less than a thief with that irksomeness under such fair competence."
At that moment a beautiful maid or woman, in her white night-robe, stood in the little doorway, with eyes so like the richness of his just gone that it must have been his daughter. She fled as she recognized a stranger, and Van Dorn pursued till a door was closed in his face.
"Poor fool!" he said, sinking into his chair again; "I will never be more honest than any woman can make me!"