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286 yourself before the tribunal of your own conscience," said he, "the court might find extenuating circumstances"

I interrupted him impatiently.

"Count," said I, leaning forward, "there is no use in our saying any more. Nothing would please me more than to be able to pay my obligation to you, while my own position is not one that I am in any way keen about. If I could do what you suggest I would in a second; but I can't. I don't pretend to be a reformed character or anything of the sort. It's simply that I've passed my word and can't go back on it without losing all my self-respect and going all to pot generally. If I were to do this one job do you suppose I'd stop there. Not for a second. I'd pitch in again and make Chu-Chu think he was the apprentice that you called him a little while ago. It's not as though I'd given my word in a fit of uplifted ideas, or to please a woman, or because I happened to feel noble for the moment and wasn't in any particular want. I did it to square a debt—and, by God, I'm going to stick to it!"

Ivan started at me gloomily. I'd rather expected he would threaten or sneer—or possibly, because there were some fine streaks in his complex nature, approve my stand. Instead, he sat and tugged at his moustache and stared at me from time to time in a sort of bored, despondent way, just as a man might at being turned down in some business proposition.

"Eh? Well," said he, suddenly arousing himself, "I was afraid I might hear something of that