"Listen, Joe," he said. "'Tis no use a-blubbering afore me, or a-screaming hout afore me. Them things affects some folks, but they never takes no rises out o' me. I may be 'ard. Likely enough I am. Hanyhow hysterics don't go down with me. Joe Barnes—as that's the name wot you was known by in England—I'm determined to get that 'ere purse. Now listen. Wot I has to say is short; wot I has to say is plain; from wot I has now got to say—I'll never go back. I lay three plans afore you, Joe Barnes. You can choose wot one you like best. The first plan is this: as you and Cecile keeps the purse, and I takes Maurice away wid me; you never see Maurice, nor hears of him again; I sell him to yer old master whose address I has in my pocket. That's the first plan. The second plan is this: that Maurice comes back to his sister, and you comes wid me, Joe. I sells you once more to yer hold master, and he keeps yer tight, and you has no more chance of running away. This seems a sensible plan, and that 'ere little Cecile, as you sets sech store by, can keep her purse and her brother too. Ef you does this, Joe Barnes, there'll be no fear of Cecile dying—that's my second plan. But the third plan's the best of all. You can get that 'ere purse of gold. You get it, or tell me where to find it, and then you shall have Maurice back. Within one hour Maurice shall be with you, and you shall stay wid Cecile and Maurice, and I'll never, never trouble you no more. I calls the last the neatest plan of all, lad. Don't you?"
Joe said nothing; his head was buried in his hands. Anton, however, saw that he was listening.
"The last is the sensible plan," he said; and he laid his hand on the lad's shoulder.
Joe started as though an adder had stung him. He threw off the defiling hand, and moved some paces away.
"There ere the others," continued Anton. "There's the little chap a-being beat and starved in London, and his little heart being hall a-broken hup. Or you can go back to the hold life, Joe Barnes; you're elder, and can bear it better. Yer head is tough by now, I guess; a big blow on it won't hurt you much; and you'll never see yer old mother or yer brother—but never mind. Yer whole life will be spent in utter misery—still, never mind, that ere dirty purse is safe; never mind aught else."
"We han't got the purse," said Joe then, raising his haggard face. "'Tis the gospel truth as I'm telling you, Anton. Cecile took the purse to a lady in Paris to take care of fur her, and she is to keep it until someone gives her a bit of paper back which she writ herself. I can't give yer the purse, fur it ain't yere, Anton."
"The bit o' paper 'ull do; the bit o' paper wid the address of the lady."
Joe groaned.
"I can't do it," he said. "I can't let Maurice go to sech a cruel life—I can't, I can't! I can't give hup the hope o' seeing my old mother. I must see my old mother once again. And I can't steal Cecile's purse. Oh! wot shall I do?"
"Look yere, lad," said Anton, more slowly and in a kinder tone, "you think it hall well hover; one o' they three plans you must stick to. Now I'm a-going away, but I'll be back yere to-morrow morning at four o'clock fur my hanswer. You ha' it ready fur me then."