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 "I can tell you no more than this," says the Don. "The fortune we may take is now in the hands of a man who has no more right to it than we have."

"If that's so," says Jack, "I'm with you, Señor. For I'd as lief bustle a thief out of his gains as say my prayers, any day, and liefer."

"Still," says I, "the money must of right belong to some one."

"We will say that the money belongs to a child of the same age as Moll."

"Then it comes to this, Señor," says I, bluntly. "We are to rob that child of fifty thousand pounds."

"When you speak of robbing," says the Don, drawing himself up with much dignity, "you forget that I am to play a part in this stratagem I, Don Sanchez del Castillo de Castelaña."

"Fie, Kit, han't you any manners?" cries Dick. "What's all this talk of a child? Hasn't the Señor told us we are but to bustle a cheat?"

"But I would know what is to become of this child, if we take her fortune, though it be withheld from her by another," says I, being exceeding obstinate and persistent in my liquor.

"I shall prove to your conviction," says the Don, "that the child will be no worse off, if we take this money, than if we leave it in the hands of that rascally steward. But I see," adds he, contemptuously, "that for all your brotherly love, 'tis no such matter to you whether poor little Molly comes to her ruin, as every maid must who goes to the stage, or is set beyond the reach of temptation and the goading of want."