here," I broke in; "you want a new butler?"

"Oh, you really grasp that fact, do you?" he retorted.

"Why, then," said I, "let me cease to be your burglar and let me
continue here as your butler."

He leant back, spreading out the fingers of each hand on the table's
edge.

"Believe me," I went on, "you might do worse. I have been in my time a
demy of Magdalen College, Oxford, and retain some Greek and Latin.
I'll undertake to read the Fathers with an accent that shall not offend
you. My taste in wine is none the worse for having been formed in other
men's cellars. Moreover, you shall engage the ugliest cook in
Christendom, so long as I'm your butler. I've taken a liking to you--
that's flat--and I apply for the post."

"I give forty pounds a year," said he.

"And I'm cheap at that price."

He filled up his glass, looking up at me while he did so with the air of
one digesting a problem. From first to last his face was grave as a
judge's.

"We are too impulsive, I think," was his answer, after a minute's
silence; "and your speech smacks of the amateur. You say, 'Let me cease
to be your burglar and let me be your butler.' The aspiration is
respectable; but a man might as well say, 'Let me cease to write
sermons, let me paint pictures.' And truly, sir, you impress me as no
expert even in your present trade."

"On the other hand," I argued, "consider the moderation of my demands;
that alone should convince you of my desire to turn over a new leaf.
I ask for a month's trial; if at the end of that time I don't suit, you
shall say so, and I'll march from your door with nothing in my pocket
but my month's wages. Be hanged, sir! but when I reflect on the amount
you'll have to pay to get me to face to-night's storm again, you seem to
be getting off dirt cheap!" cried I, slapping my palm on the table.

"Ah, if you had only known Parkinson!" he exclaimed.

Now the third glass of clean spirit has always a deplorable effect on
me. It turns me from bright to black, from levity to extreme sulkiness.
I have done more wickedness over this third tumbler than in all the
other states of comparative inebriety within my experience. So now I
glowered at my companion and cursed.

"Look here, I don't want to hear any more of Parkinson, and I've a
pretty clear notion of the game you're playing. You want to make me
drink, and you're ready to sit prattling there plying me till I drop
under the table."

"Do me the favour