“You bear me a grudge, Josh, that I know.  But come, now—­as between man and man—­without humbug—­a little capital might enable me to make a first-rate thing of the shop.  The tobacco trade is growing.  I should cut my own nose off in not doing the best I could at it.  I should stick to it like a flea to a fleece for my own sake.  I should always be on the spot.  And nothing would make your poor mother so happy.  I’ve pretty well done with my wild oats—­ turned fifty-five.  I want to settle down in my chimney-corner.  And if I once buckled to the tobacco trade, I could bring an amount of brains and experience to bear on it that would not be found elsewhere in a hurry.  I don’t want to be bothering you one time after another, but to get things once for all into the right channel.  Consider that, Josh—­as between man and man—­and with your poor mother to be made easy for her life.  I was always fond of the old woman, by Jove!”

“Have you done?” said Mr. Rigg, quietly, without looking away from the window.

“Yes, I’ve done,” said Raffles, taking hold of his hat which stood before him on the table, and giving it a sort of oratorical push.

“Then just listen to me.  The more you say anything, the less I shall believe it.  The more you want me to do a thing, the more reason I shall have for never doing it.  Do you think I mean to forget your kicking me when I was a lad, and eating all the best victual away from me and my mother?  Do you think I forget your always coming home to sell and pocket everything, and going off again leaving us in the lurch?  I should be glad to see you whipped at the cart-tail.  My mother was a fool to you:  she’d no right to give me a father-in-law, and she’s been punished for it.  She shall have her weekly allowance paid and no more:  and that shall be stopped if you dare to come on to these premises again, or to come into this country after me again.  The next time you show yourself inside the gates here, you shall be driven off with the dogs and the wagoner’s whip.”

As Rigg pronounced the last words he turned round and looked at Raffles with his prominent frozen eyes.  The contrast was as striking as it could have been eighteen years before, when Rigg was a most unengaging kickable boy, and Raffles was the rather thick-set Adonis of bar-rooms and back-parlors.  But the advantage now was on the side of Rigg, and auditors of this conversation might probably have expected that Raffles would retire with the air of a defeated dog.  Not at all.  He made a grimace which was habitual with him whenever he was “out” in a game; then subsided into a laugh, and drew a brandy-flask from his pocket.

“Come, Josh,” he said, in a cajoling tone, “give us a spoonful of brandy, and a sovereign to pay the way back, and I’ll go.  Honor bright!  I’ll go like a bullet, by Jove!”

“Mind,” said Rigg, drawing out a bunch of keys, “if I ever see you again, I shan’t speak to you.  I don’t own you any more than if I saw a crow; and if you want to own me you’ll get nothing by it but a character for being what you are—­a spiteful, brassy, bullying rogue.”