“I’ll answer you to-morrow morning, Senor,” says I.  “And whether I fall in with the scheme or not is all as one, since my help is not needed; for if it be to Moll’s good, I’ll bid you farewell, and you shall see me never again.”

“Spoken like a man!” says Don Sanchez, “and a wise one to boot.  An enterprise of this nature is not to be undertaken without reflection, like the smoking of a pipe.  If you put your foot forward, it must be with the understanding that you cannot go back.  I must have that assurance, for I shall be hundreds of pounds out of pocket ere I can get any return for my venture.”

“Have no fear of me or of Moll turning tail at a scarecrow,” says Jack, adding with a sneer, “we are no poets.”

“Reflect upon it.  Argue it out with your friend here, whose scruples do not displease me, and let me know your determination when the last word is said.  Business carries me to London to-morrow; but you shall meet me at night, and we will close the business—­aye or nay—­ere supper.”

With that he opens the door and gives us our congee, the most noble in the world; but not offering to give us a bed, we are forced to go out of doors and grope our way through the snow to the cart-shed, and seek a shelter there from the wind, which was all the keener and more bitter for our leaving a good fire.  And I believe the shrewd Spaniard had put us to this pinch as a foretaste of the misery we must endure if we rejected his design, and so to shape our inclinations to his.

Happily, the landlord, coming out with a lantern, and finding us by the chattering of our teeth, was moved by the consideration shown us by Don Sanchez to relax his severity; and so, unlocking the stable door, he bade us get up into the loft, which we did, blessing him as if he had been the best Christian in the world.  And then, having buried ourselves in hay, Jack Dawson and I fell to arguing the matter in question, I sticking to my scruples (partly from vanity), and he stoutly holding t’other side; and I, being warmed by my own eloquence, and he not less heated by liquor (having taken best part of the last bowl to his share), we ran it pretty high, so that at one point Jack was for lighting a candle end he had in his pocket and fighting it out like men.  But, little by little, we cooled down, and towards morning, each giving way something, we came to the conclusion that we would have Don Sanchez show us the steward, that we might know the truth of his story (which I misdoubted, seeing that it was but a roguish kind of game at best that he would have us take part in), and that if we found all things as he represented them, then we would accept his offer.  And also we resolved to be down betimes and let him know our determination before he set out for London, to the end that we might not be left fasting all the day.  But herein we miscalculated the potency of liquor and a comfortable bed of hay, for ’twas nine o’clock before either of us winked an eye, and when we got down, we learnt that Don Sanchez had been gone a full hour, and so no prospect of breaking our fast till nightfall.