'Yours, sir, would be too much honour for the like of me,' replied the
locksmith, hesitating.
'I wish you to remain here a little while, Varden,' said Mr Haredale,
without looking towards them. 'I have a word or two to say to you.'
'I will not intrude upon your conference another moment,' said Mr
Chester with inconceivable politeness. 'May it be satisfactory to you
both! God bless you!' So saying, and bestowing upon the locksmith a most
refulgent smile, he left them.
'A deplorably constituted creature, that rugged person,' he said, as
he walked along the street; 'he is an atrocity that carries its own
punishment along with it--a bear that gnaws himself. And here is one
of the inestimable advantages of having a perfect command over one's
inclinations. I have been tempted in these two short interviews, to draw
upon that fellow, fifty times. Five men in six would have yielded to the
impulse. By suppressing mine, I wound him deeper and more keenly than if
I were the best swordsman in all Europe, and he the worst. You are the
wise man's very last resource,' he said, tapping the hilt of his weapon;
'we can but appeal to you when all else is said and done. To come to you
before, and thereby spare our adversaries so much, is a barbarian mode
of warfare, quite unworthy of any man with the remotest pretensions to
delicacy of feeling, or refinement.
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