Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/39



"Until what?"

"Until either you get Mr. Darrell to settle on me a suitable provision; or until you place me in possession of my daughter, and I can then be in a better condition to treat with him myself; for if I would make a claim on account of the girl, I must produce the girl, or he may say she is dead. Besides, if she be as pretty as she was when a child, the very sight of her might move him more than all my talk."

"And if I succeed in doing anything with Mr. Darrell, or discovering your daughter, you will give up all such letters and documents of mine as you say you possess?"

"'Say I possess!' I have shown them to you in this pocket-book, Dolly Poole--your own proposition to rob old Latham's safe."

Poole eyed the book, which the ruffian took out and tapped. Had the ruffian been a slighter man, Poole would have been a braver one. As it was--he eyed and groaned. "Turn against one's own crony! So unhandsome, so unlike what I thought you were."

"It is you who would turn against me. But stick to Darrell or find me my daughter, and help her and me to get justice out of him; and you shall not only have back these letters, but I'll pay you handsomely--handsomely, Dolly Poole. Zooks, sir--I am fallen, but I am always a gentleman."

Therewith Losely gave a vehement slap to his hat, which, crushed by the stroke, improved his general appearance into an aspect so outrageously raffish, that but for the expression of his countenance the contrast between the boast and the man would have been ludicrous even to Mr. Poole. The countenance was too dark to permit laughter. In the dress, but the ruin of fortune--in the face, the ruin of man. Poole heaved a deep sigh, and extended four sovereigns.

Losely rose and took them carelessly. "This day week," he said--shook himself--and went his way.