"Well, then, listen: if in future you have any curiosity concerning lunettes and dead walls, let me inform you that you are qualified to embellish either.
"Tiens! You seem startled. It never occurred to you to ask why I have had certain papers written out by you, or why I have had you affix your pretty signature to so many little documents which you could not read because the ink was invisible.
"No. You have never thought about such matters, have you? But, all the same, I have all I require to make you sneeze into the basket, or to play blindman's buff between a dead wall and a squad of execution.
"And now!—Now that you know enough to hold your tongue, will you hold it in future and be honest and loyal to the hand that picked you out of the gutter and that has fed you ever since?"
There was a silence.
"Will you?" he repeated.
"No!"
A bull-like roar burst from Wildresse:
"I'll twist your neck for you, and I'll do it now!" he bellowed. "I'll snap that white neck of yours——"
CHAPTER XVIII