Am gone to seek him and shall soon return:
Bid him await me here. If by your help
I get off quickly, I will help you; if not,
Tristram, I’ll cut your throat from ear to ear. [Exit.
T. Heavens! what has possessed my master, and what’s to happen to me? O wala, wala! It all comes of love: or rather, I should say, it all came of my hat. I would it had been consumed entirely. This hole in the crown is not to be mended ... and all round ’tis like tinder, it breaks with a touch. Of what contemptible material are these hats made! It might have been sewn up else. Now ’tis a picture of me. Yes, the hat is me, as it were; the hole in the crown is the ruin of my fortunes wrought upon me by the fiery lamp, which is my love for Flora. There’s a parable. Could I write a poem on this, it might appease the Countess. Deary me! What are Flora and I to do? Money being the root of all evil, I must look first to that. All depends on that. Let me see what I can muster. There’s my pay; there’s the Countess’present, and my little savings. (turns out his purse and pockets on to the table.) I’ll put it all in heaps of ten. No, heaps of five: better in fives, there’ll be more heaps; and there’s comfort in the number of heaps. Tho’less lordly, ’twill be more showy. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty. (knocking at door.) Come in,—twenty-five.
Enter St. Nicholas.
ST. NICHOLAS.
Tristram! Where’s your master?
T. Twenty-five. My master’s no more. Twenty-six.
N. Frederick is dead?