than I had been, though still in a
weak and languid state. Having read for a considerable time, they looked
at me, and then at the paper, and then at me again. They then went out
of the room together, as if to consult without interruption upon
something which that paper suggested to them. Some time after they
returned; and my protector, who had been absent upon the former
occasion, entered the room at the same instant.

"Captain!" said one of them with an air of pleasure, "look here! we have
found a prize! I believe it is as good as a bank-note of a hundred
guineas."

Mr. Raymond (that was his name) took the paper, and read. He paused for
a moment. He then crushed the paper in his hand; and, turning to the
person from whom he had received it, said, with the tone of a man
confident in the success of his reasons,--

"What use have you for these hundred guineas? Are you in want? Are you
in distress? Can you be contented to purchase them at the price of
treachery--of violating the laws of hospitality?"

"Faith, captain, I do not very well know. After having violated other
laws, I do not see why we should be frightened at an old saw. We pretend
to judge for ourselves, and ought to be above shrinking from a bugbear
of a proverb. Beside, this is a good deed, and I should think no more
harm of being the ruin of such a thief than of getting my dinner."

"A thief! You talk of thieves!"

"Not so fast, captain. God defend that I should say a word against
thieving as a general occupation! But one man steals in one way, and
another in another. For my part, I go upon the highway, and take from
any stranger I meet what, it is a hundred to one, he can very well
spare. I see nothing to be found fault with in that. But I have as much
conscience as another man. Because I laugh at assizes, and great wigs,
and the gallows, and because I will not be frightened from an innocent
action when the lawyers say me nay, does it follow that I am to have a
fellow-feeling for pilferers, and rascally servants, and people that
have neither justice nor principle? No; I have too much respect for the
trade not to be a foe to interlopers, and people that so much the more
deserve my hatred, because the world calls them by my name."

"You are wrong, Larkins! You certainly ought not to employ against
people that you hate, supposing your hatred to be reasonable, the
instrumentality of that law which in your practice you defy. Be
consistent. Either be the