'Lookye,--I
never killed a man myself, for I have never been placed in a position
that made it worth my while. Farther, I am not an advocate for killing
men, and I don't think I should recommend it or like it--for it's very
hazardous--under any circumstances. But as you had the misfortune to get
into this trouble before I made your acquaintance, and as you have been
my companion, and have been of use to me for a long time now, I overlook
that part of the matter, and am only anxious that you shouldn't die
unnecessarily. Now, I do not consider that, at present, it is at all
necessary.'
'What else is left me?' returned the prisoner. 'To eat my way through
these walls with my teeth?'
'Something easier than that,' returned his friend. 'Promise me that you
will talk no more of these fancies of yours--idle, foolish things, quite
beneath a man--and I'll tell you what I mean.'
'Tell me,' said the other.
'Your worthy lady with the tender conscience; your scrupulous, virtuous,
punctilious, but not blindly affectionate wife--'
'What of her?'
'Is now in London.'
'A curse upon her, be she where she may!'
'That's natural enough. If she had taken her annuity as usual, you would
not have been here, and we should have been better off.
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