“I do, every bit of it.”
“'Gad! what a fellow!—what a lucky dog! But you must let me see her, Warham!”
“What! to spoil all—to blurt out the truth?—for, with every disposition to fib, you lack the ability. No, no, Ben: when the game's up—when I'm tired of the sport, and feel the necessity of looking out fresh viands—you shall then know all; I'll give the clue into your own hands, and you may follow it to your heart's content. But not now!”
“But how will you get rid of me, mon ami, if my curiosity is stubborn?”
“Do as the kill-deer does—travel from the nest—go home with you, rather than you should succeed in your impertinence, and have you expelled from the club for thrusting your spoon into the dish of a brother-member.”
“You're a Turk, with no bowels of compassion. But, at all events, you promise me the dish when you're done with it? you give me the preference?”
“I do!”
“Swear by Beelzebub and Mohammed; by Jupiter Ammon and Johannes Secundus; by the ghost of Cardinal Bembo, and the gridiron of the fraternity!”
“Ay, and by the virginity of Queen Elizabeth!”
“Simulacrum! no! no! no such oath for me! That's swearing by the thing that is not, was not—could not be! You shall swear by the oaths of the club—you must be bound on the gridiron of the fraternity, before I believe you. Swear!”