ht so die.
Or he would surely gamble himself into farther and utter ruin. At any
rate he would be well out of the way, and Augustus in his pride had been
glad to feel that he had his brother well under his thumb. Then the debt
had been paid with the object of saving the estate from litigation on
the part of the creditors. That had been his one great mistake. And he
had not known his father, or his father's guile, or his father's
strength. Why had not his father died at once?--as all the world had
assured him would be the case. Looking back he could remember that the
idea of paying the creditors had at first come from his father, simply
as a vague idea! Oh, what a crafty rascal his father had been! And then
he had allowed himself, in his pride, to insult his father, and had
spoken of his father's coming death as a thing that was desirable! From
that moment his father had plotted his ruin. He could see it all now.

He was still minded to make the spoon; but he found that he should spoil
the horn. Had there been any one to assist him he would still have
persevered. He thought that he could have persevered with a lawyer who
would really have taken up his case with interest. If Mountjoy could be
made to drink--so as to die! He was still next in the entail; and he was
his brother's heir should his brother die without a will. But so he
would be if he took the twenty-five thousand pounds. But to accept so
poor a modicum would go frightfully against the grain with him. He
seemed to think that by taking the allowance he would bring back his
brother to all the long-lived decencies of life. He would have to
surrender altogether that feeling of conscious superiority which had
been so much to him. "D----n the fellow!" he exclaimed to himself. "I
should not wonder if he were in that fellow's pay." The first "fellow"
here was the lawyer, and the second was his brother.

When he had sat there alone for half an hour he could not make up his
mind. When all his debts were paid he would not have much above
twenty-five thousand pounds. His father had absolutely extracted five
thousand pounds from him toward paying his brother's debts! The money
had been wanted immediately. Together with the sum coming from the new
purchasers, father and son must each subscribe five thousand pounds to
pay those Jews. So it had been represented to him, and he had borrowed
the money to carry out his object. Had ever any one been so swindled, so
cruelly treated