"You are going to Machynleth; and you want a guide to show you the road and to carry your portmanteau: Now I'll do both on cheap terms; for all I ask in return is this--that, up to the inn-door, if we meet any body that asks unpleasant questions, you will just be so good as to let me pass for your servant whom you have brought from abroad. What say you? Is it a bargain?"
"My good friend,--according to the most flattering account I have yet received of your morals (which is your own), they are rather of a loose description; and with all possible respect for your virtue that the case allows, you will admit yourself that I should be running some little risk in confiding my portmanteau to your care: for I know not who you are; and, before I could look round, you might be off with my whole property; in which case I should certainly be on a 'sunk rock.' Some little risk, yon must candidly allow?"
"No," said the stranger--"No, not at all: and if that's all the objection you have, I'll convince you that you are wrong in a moment. Now just look at me (there's a little starlight at this moment). Perhaps you'll admit that I'm rather a stouter man than yourself?"
"Oh! doubtless."
"And possibly this bludgeon would be no especial disadvantage to me in a contest with an unarmed man?"
"I must acknowledge it would not."
"Nor this particular knife? according to your view of my 'morals,' as you call them, I suppose it would not be very difficult for me to cut your throat with it, and then pitch you into one of these dark mountain ravines--where some six weeks hence a mouldering corpse of a stranger might chance to be found, that nobody would trouble his head about?--Are my arguments forcible? satisfactory, eh?"
"Undoubtedly. I must grant that there is considerable force in your way of arguing the case. But permit me to ask, what particular consideration moves you to conduct me and my portmanteau without hire to Machynleth? It seems too disinterested a proposal, to awaken no suspicion."
"Not so disinterested as you may fancy. Suppose now I happen to have left a few debts behind me in this country: or suppose I were an alien with no passport:--or suppose any other little supposes you like: only keep them to yourself, and talk as low if you please as convenient."
"Well, be it so: here's the portmanteau: take care you don't drop this little letter-case."