“Well then, for five hundred pounds, you will give up the paper?”

“Yes; I vash content to loshe all de rest, to please you.”

I went to my desk, and took out five hundred pounds in notes.  “Now, there is the money, which you may put your hands on when you give up the agreement.”  The old man pulled out the agreement and laid it on the table, catching up the notes.  I looked at the paper to see if it was all right, and then tore it up.  Emmanuel put the notes, with a heavy sigh, into his inside coat pocket, and prepared to depart.  “Now, Mr Emmanuel, I will show that I have a little more honour than you think for.  This is all the money I have in the world,” said I, taking out of my desk the remaining thousand pounds, “and half of it I give to you, to pay you the whole money which you lent me.  Here is five hundred pounds more, and now we are quits.”

The eyes of the old man were fixed upon me in astonishment, and from my face they glanced upon the notes; he could, to use a common expression, neither believe his eyes nor his ears.  At last he took the money, again unbuttoned and pulled out his pocket-book, and with a trembling hand stowed them away as before.

“You vash a very odd gentleman, Mishter Newland,” said he; “you kick me down stairs, and—­but dat is noting.”

“Good-bye, Mr Emmanuel,” said I, “and let me eat my dinner.”

Chapter LVI

     I resolve to begin the world again, and to seek my fortune in the
     next path—­I take leave of all my old friends.

The Jew retired, and I commenced my meal, when the door again slowly opened, and Mr Emmanuel crawled up to me.

“Mishter Newland, I vash beg your pardon, but vill you not pay me de interest of de monish?”

I started up from my chair, with my rattan in my hand.  “Begone, you old thief,” cried I; and hardly were the words out of my mouth, before Mr Emmanuel travelled out of the room, and I never saw him afterwards.  I was pleased with myself for having done this act of honesty, and for the first time for a long while, I ate my dinner with some zest.  After I had finished, I took a twenty pound note, and laid it in my desk, the remainder of the five hundred pounds I put in my pocket, to try my last chance.  In an hour I quitted the hell penniless.  When I returned home I had composed myself a little after the dreadful excitement which I had been under.  I felt a calm, and a degree of negative happiness.  I knew my fate—­there was no more suspense.  I sat down to reflect upon what I should do.  I was to commence the world again—­to sink down at once into obscurity—­into poverty—­and I felt happy.  I had severed the link between myself and my former condition—­I was again a beggar, but I was independent—­and I resolved so to be.  I spoke kindly to Timothy, went to bed, and having arranged in my own mind how I should act, I fell sound asleep.