I thought it possible, nay, I thought it probable. If I had only made a clean breast of it when the scoundrel had first accosted me the night before!
"The thing now is, what am I to do?"
"I should have thought," I gasped, "that the thing now is what am I to do."
"Nothing of the sort. You have placed yourself outside the pale of consideration. It is myself I must consider." He said this with a lordly wave of the hand.
Crushed though I was, I found his manner a little trying.
"It is my misfortune that my ears are ever open to the promptings of mercy."
"I had not previously supposed that a characteristic of that kind was a misfortune."
"It is a misfortune, and one of the gravest kind. It is one, moreover, against which I have had to battle my whole life long. The truly fortunate man is he who can always mete out justice. But the still, small voice of mercy I have ever heard. It is a weakness, but it is mine own. My obvious duty to society would be to take prompt steps to rid it of such a man as you."
That was a pleasant sort of observation to have addressed to one.
"It strikes me that you take rather a strained view of your duty, sir."