pose the fifteen dollars extra he has to give
keep on rankling--in there."

And Schomberg tapped his manly breast. I sat half stunned by his
irrelevant babble. Suddenly he gripped my forearm in an impressive and
cautious manner, as if to lead me into a very cavern of confidence.

"It's nothing but enviousness," he said in a lowered tone, which had a
stimulating effect upon my wearied hearing. "I don't suppose there
is one person in this town that he isn't envious of. I tell you he's
dangerous. Even I myself am not safe from him. I know for certain he
tried to poison...."

"Oh, come now," I cried, revolted.

"But I know for certain. The people themselves came and told me of it.
He went about saying everywhere I was a worse pest to this town than the
cholera. He had been talking against me ever since I opened this hotel.
And he poisoned Captain Hermann's mind too. Last time the Diana was
loading here Captain Hermann used to come in every day for a drink or a
cigar. This time he hasn't been here twice in a week. How do you account
for that?"

He squeezed my arm till he extorted from me some sort of mumble.

"He makes ten times the money I do. I've another hotel to fight against,
and there is no other tug on the river. I am not in his way, am I? He
wouldn't be fit to run an hotel if he tried. But that's just his nature.
He can't bear to think I am making a living. I only hope it makes him
properly wretched. He's like that in everything. He would like to keep a
decent table well enough. But no--for the sake of a few cents. Can't do
it. It's too much for him. That's what I call being a slave to it. But
he's mean enough to kick up a row when his nose gets tickled a bit. See
that? That just paints him. Miserly and envious. You can't account for
it any other way. Can you? I have been studying him these three years."

He was anxious I should assent to his theory. And indeed on thinking it
over it would have been plausible enough if there hadn't been always the
essential falseness of irresponsibility in Schomberg's chatter. However,
I was not disposed to investigate the psychology of Falk. I was engaged
just then in eating despondently a piece of stale Dutch cheese, being
too much crushed to care what I swallowed myself, let along bothering my
head about Falk's ideas of gastronomy. I could expect from their study
no clue to his conduct in matters of business, which seemed to me
totally unrestrained by morality or even by th