“I cannot say.”
“When they got to the door, my father knocked, and the moment it was open, Jack seized hold of him like a tiger, and pitched him in right upon the stomach of the night-constable saying, ‘Take care of him. Good night, and off he went.’”
They had now reached the corner of the street, and Gray turned to his companion, saying,—
“Sir, I do not wish your company.”
“Past four and a cold morning,” growled an asthmatic watchman, from some distance off, at this moment.
“I’ll stick by him,” thought the shoemaker, “and when we come up to the watchman, I’ll call upon him to help me to take him. I must have him somehow.”
“Oh, you don’t want company! well, sir, I’ll only walk with you till you meet your two friends.”
Had Jacob Gray, at that moment of goaded passion, possessed any weapon that would have noiselessly and surely put an end to the ambition and the life of the troublesome shoemaker, he would have used it with exquisite satisfaction; but being quite unarmed, he considered himself powerless; and as is the case in many contests in life, the affair resolved itself simply to one point, namely, which should succeed in frightening the other. But then the watchman might be a powerful auxiliary to his opponent, and Jacob Gray screwed his courage up to the sticking place, to endeavour to get rid of his companion before such aid should arrive. He therefore turned abruptly and cried in a fierce angry tone,—
“How dare you, sir, intrude yourself upon me?”
The shoemaker started back several paces, and in evident alarm, cried,—