CHAPTER XXIV.

THE DEVIL’S COUNSEL.

“STEAL it,” said the Devil.

Simon was all of a twitter; for though he fancied his own heart said it, still his ear-drum rattled, as if somebody had spoken.

Simon—­that ear-drum was to put you off your guard:  the deaf can hear the devil:  he needs no tympanum to commune with the spirit:  listen again, Simon; your own thoughts echo every word.

“Steal it:  hide in her room; you know she has a shower-bath there, which nobody has used for years, standing in a corner; two or three cloaks in it, nothing else:  it locks inside, how lucky! ensconce yourself there, watch the old woman to sleep—­what a fat heavy sleeper she is!—­quietly take her keys, and steal the store:  remember, it is a honey-pot.  Nothing’s easier—­or safer.  Who’d suspect you?”

“Splendid! and as good as done,” triumphantly exclaimed the nephew, snapping his fingers, and prancing with glee;—­“a glorious fancy! bless my lucky star!”

If there be a planet Lucifer, that was Simon’s lucky star.

And so, Mrs Quarles the biter is going to be bit, eh?  It generally is so in this world’s government.  You, who brought in your estimable nephew to aid and abet in your own dishonest ways, are, it seems, going to be robbed of all your knavish gains by him.  This is taking the wise in their own craftiness, I reckon:  and richly you deserve to lose all your ill-got hoard.  At the same time, Mrs. Quarles—­I will be just—­there are worse people in the world than you are:  in comparison with your nephew, I consider you a grosser kind of angel; and I really hope no harm may befall your old bones beyond the loss of your money.  However, if you are to lose this, it is my wish that poor Mrs. Scott, or some other honest body, may get it, and not Simon; or rather, I should not object that he may get it first, and get hung for getting it, too, before the sister has the hoard.

Our friend, Simon Jennings, could not sleep that night; his reveries and scheming lasted from the rum-punch’s final drop, at ten P.M., to circiter two A.M., and then, or thenabouts, the devil hinted “steal it;” and so, not till nearly four, he began to shut his eyes, and dream again, as his usual fashion was, of adding up receipts in five figures, and of counting out old Bridget’s hoarded gold.

Next day, notwithstanding nocturnal semi-sleeplessness, he awoke as brisk as a bee, got up in as exhilarated a state as any gas-balloon, and was thought to be either surprisingly in spirits, or spirits surprisingly in him; none knew which, “where each seemed either.”  That whole day long, he did the awkwardest things, and acted in the most absent manner possible; Jonathan thought Mr. Simon was beside himself; Sarah Stack, foolish thing! said he was in love, and was observed to look in the glass several times herself; other people did not know what to think—­it was quite a mystery.  To recount only a few of his unprecedented exploits on that day of anticipative bliss: