“Oh!  I wasn’t going to do any ill with it.”

“Then why that guilty look when you dropped it.  Come, now—­I am in no humor to be hard upon you.  Were you going to make some more cards?”

“Now, sir, didn’t I promise you I never would do that again;” and Robinson wore an aggrieved look.  “Would I break a promise I made to you?”

“What was it for then?”

“Am I bound to criminate myself, your reverence?”

“Certainly not to your enemy! but to your friend, and to him who has the care of your soul—­yes!”

“Let me ask you a question first, sir.  Which is worth most, one life or twenty?”

“Twenty.”

“Then if by taking one life you can save twenty, it is a good action to put that one out of the way?”

“That does not follow.”

“Oh! doesn’t it?  I thought it did.  There’s a man in this prison that murders men wholesale.  I thought if I could any way put it out of his power to kill any more what a good action it would be!”

“A good action! so then this brick—­”

“Was for Hawes’s skull, your reverence.”

“This, then, is the fruit of all my teaching.  You will break my heart among you.

“Don’t say so, sir! pray don’t say so!  I won’t touch a hair of his head now you are alive; but I thought you were dead or dying, so what did it matter then what I did?  Besides, I was driven into a corner; I could only kill that scoundrel or let him kill me.  But you are alive, and you will find some way of saving my life as well as his.”

“I will try.  But first abandon all thoughts of lawless revenge.  ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.’  Come, promise me.”

“Now, sir, is it likely I would offend you for the pleasure of dirtying my fingers with that rascal’s blood?  Don’t let such a lump of dirt as him make mischief between you and me, sir.”

“I understand! with you any unchristian sentiment is easily driven out—­by another.  Hatred is to give way to contempt.”

“No, sir, but you are alive, and I don’t think of Hawes now one way or other—­with such scum as that out of sight is out of mind.  When did you begin to get better, sir? and are you better? and shall I see your blessed face in my cell every day as I used?” And the water stood in the thief’s eyes.

Mr. Eden smiled and sighed.  “Your mind is like an eel—­Heaven help the man that tries to get hold of it to do it any lasting good.  You and I must have a good pray together some day.”

“Ah! your reverence, that would do me good soul and body,” said Mr. Supple.

“Let me now feel your pulse; it is very low.  What is the matter?”

“Starvation, overwork, and solitude.  I feel myself sinking.”

“If I could amuse your mind.”

“Even you could hardly do that, sir.”

“Hum!  I have brought you a quire of paper and one of Mr. Gillott’s swan-quill pens and a penny ink-bottle.”