But, purgatory as the place would appear, the stranger advances into it: and, like Orpheus in his gay descent to Tartarus, lightly hums to himself an opera snatch.
Suddenly there is a rustling, then a creaking, one of the cradles swings out from a murky nook, a sort of wasted penguin-flipper is supplicatingly put forth, while a wail like that of Dives is heard:—“Water, water!”
It was the miser of whom the merchant had spoken.
Swift as a sister-of-charity, the stranger hovers over him:—
“My poor, poor sir, what can I do for you?”
“Ugh, ugh—water!”
Darting out, he procures a glass, returns, and, holding it to the sufferer’s lips, supports his head while he drinks: “And did they let you lie here, my poor sir, racked with this parching thirst?”
The miser, a lean old man, whose flesh seemed salted cod-fish, dry as combustibles; head, like one whittled by an idiot out of a knot; flat, bony mouth, nipped between buzzard nose and chin; expression, flitting between hunks and imbecile—now one, now the other—he made no response. His eyes were closed, his cheek lay upon an old white moleskin coat, rolled under his head like a wizened apple upon a grimy snow-bank.
Revived at last, he inclined towards his ministrant, and, in a voice disastrous with a cough, said:—“I am old and miserable, a poor beggar, not worth a shoestring—how can I repay you?”
“By giving me your confidence.”