The man looked up at him suspiciously. "You could do a precious lot, I don't fink!" he exclaimed.
"I'd do this," said the doctor viciously. "I'd hunt you out of the country, my friend; I'd look up past records and see what took you into prison; I'd see if you couldn't be got back there again. How do you think your word would stand against mine, when it came to a cock-and-bull story of the wrong man buried and the right man alive? Think yourself lucky you've been treated as well as you have."
George Rabbit eyed him resentfully, and had a long look at me; then he slowly shuffled to his feet. "Give us the rhino, an' show me w'ere I'm to sleep," he said. "I shall keep me face shut; you needn't be afraid."
The doctor pushed the coins towards him, and he was in the very act of gathering them up with some deliberateness, when the door was opened, and Martha Leach walked in. What she had expected to find, or whether she had anticipated discovering the doctor alone, it is impossible to say; certain it is that she stopped dead, taking in the little picture before her, and something of its meaning. George Rabbit swept the coins into his hand, and jingled them for a moment, and dropped them into his pocket.
"What do you want?" snarled Bardolph Just.
"Nothing," replied the woman, in some dismay. "I only thought—I only wondered if you wanted anything more to-night. I'm very sorry."
"I want nothing. Go to bed," he said curtly; and with another swift glance round the room that seemed to embrace us all, she walked out of the room and closed the door.
"Now, show this man where he can sleep," he said, turning to me. "There's a loft over the stable, with plenty of straw in it; if he doesn't set fire to himself he'll be comfortable enough. You know where it is?"
I nodded, and signed to George Rabbit to follow me. He made an elaborate and somewhat ironical bow to the doctor in the doorway of the room. The doctor called him back for a moment.
"You can slip away in the morning when you like," he said. "And don't let us see your ugly face again."