"I beg your pardon! it's the first time in fifteen years that I have failed to find an appropriate rhyming word; but the exigencies of a moment, you will understand, may destroy both rhyme and reason."
He was folding the bills carefully and placing them in a shabby purse while Sharpman looked down on him with undisguised ill will.
"Now," said the lawyer, "I expect that you will leave the city on the first train in the morning, and that you will not stop until you have gone at least a hundred miles. Here! here's enough more money to pay your fare that far, and buy your dinner"; and he held out, scornfully, toward the young man, another bank-bill.
Rhyming Joe declined it with a courteous wave of his hand, and, rising, began, with much dignity, to button his coat.
"I have already received," he said, "the quid pro quo of the bargain. I do not sue for charity nor accept it. Reserve your financial favors for the poor and needy.
"Go find the beggar crawling in the sun,
Or him that's worse;
But don't inflict your charity on one
With well filled purse."
Sharpman looked amused and put the money back into his pocket. Then a bit of his customary politeness returned to him.
"I shall not expect to see you in Scranton again for some time, Mr. Cheekerton," he said, "but when you do come this way, I trust you will honor me with a visit."
"Thank you, sir. When I return I shall expect to find that your brilliant scheme has met with deserved success; that old Craft has chuckled himself to death over his riches; and that my young friend Ralph is happy in his new home, and contented with such slight remnant of his fortune as may be left to him after you two are through with it. By the way, let me ask just one favor of you on leaving, and that is that the boy may never know what a narrow escape he has had to-night, and may never know that he is not really the son of Robert Burnham. It would be an awful blow to him to know that Old Simon is actually his grandfather; and there's no need, now, to tell him.
"'Where ignorance is bliss,' you know the rest,
And a still tongue is generally the best."