“My word must satisfy you,” said Algernon, rising.

“So it shall.  So it do,” returned Sedgett, rising with him.  “Will you give it in writing?”

“I won’t.”

“That’s blunt.  Will you come and have a look at a sparring-match in yond’ brown booth, sir?”

“I am going back to London.”

“London and the theayter that’s the fun, now, ain’t it!” Sedgett laughed.

Algernon discerned his cabman and the conveyance ready, and beckoned him.

“Perhaps, sir,” said Sedgett, “if I might make so bold—­I don’t want to speak o’ them sovereigns—­but I’ve got to get back too, and cash is run low.  D’ ye mind, sir?  Are you kind-hearted?”

A constitutional habit of servility to his creditor when present before him signalized Algernon.  He detested the man, but his feebleness was seized by the latter question, and he fancied he might, on the road to London, convey to Sedgett’s mind that it would be well to split that thousand, as he had previously devised.

“Jump in,” he said.

When Sedgett was seated, Algernon would have been glad to walk the distance to London to escape from the unwholesome proximity.  He took the vacant place, in horror of it.  The man had hitherto appeared respectful; and in Dahlia’s presence he had seemed a gentle big fellow with a reverent, affectionate heart.  Sedgett rallied him.

“You’ve had bad luck—­that’s wrote on your hatband.  Now, if you was a woman, I’d say, tak’ and go and have a peroose o’ your Bible.  That’s what my young woman does; and by George! it’s just like medicine to her—­that ‘tis!  I’ve read out to her till I could ha’ swallowed two quart o’ beer at a gulp—­I was that mortal thirsty.  It don’t somehow seem to improve men.  It didn’t do me no good.  There was I, cursin’ at the bother, down in my boots, like, and she with her hands in a knot, staring the fire out o’ count’nance.  They’re weak, poor sort o’ things.”

The intolerable talk of the ruffian prompted Algernon to cry out, for relief,—­

“A scoundrel like you must be past any good to be got from reading his Bible.”

Sedgett turned his dull brown eyes on him, the thick and hateful flush of evil blood informing them with detestable malignity.

“Come; you be civil, if you’re going to be my companion,” he said.  “I don’t like bad words; they don’t go down my windpipe.  ’Scoundrel ’s a name I’ve got a retort for, and if it hadn’t been you, and you a gentleman, you’d have had it spanking hot from the end o’ my fist.  Perhaps you don’t know what sort of a arm I’ve got?  Just you feel that ther’ muscle.”

He doubled his arm, the knuckles of the fist toward Algernon’s face.

“Down with it, you dog!” cried Algernon, crushing his hat as he started up.

“It’ll come on your nose, if I downs with it, my lord,” said Sedgett.  “You’ve what they Londoners calls ‘bonneted yourself.’”