seen in me to lead you to suppose that I would sell
myself for a bribe? And how can you have been so unwise as to offer
it after I have told you that she shall be free,--if she chooses to
be free? But it is all one. You deal in subterfuges till you think it
impossible that a man should be honest. You mine underground, till
your eyes see nothing in the open daylight. You walk crookedly, till
a straight path is an abomination to you. Four hundred a year is
nothing to me for such a purpose as this,--would have been nothing
to me even though no penny had been paid to me of the money which
is my own. I can easily understand what it is that makes the Earl
so devoted a lover. His devotion began when he had been told that
the money was hers and not his,--and that in no other way could he
get it. Mine began when no one believed that she would ever have
a shilling for her fortune,--when all who bore her name and her
mother's ridiculed their claim. Mine was growing when my father first
asked me whether I grudged that he should spend all that he had in
their behalf. Mine came from giving. His springs from the desire to
get. Make the four hundred, four thousand;--make it eight thousand,
Serjeant Bluestone, and offer it to him. I also will agree. With him
you may succeed. Good morning, Serjeant Bluestone. On Monday next I
will not be worse than my word,--even though you have offered me a
bribe."

The Serjeant let the tailor go without a word further,--not, indeed,
having a word to say. He had been insulted in his own chambers,--told
that his word was worthless, and his honesty questionable. But he
had been so told, that at the moment he had been unable to stop the
speaker. He had sat, and smiled, and stroked his chin, and looked
at the tailor as though he had been endeavouring to comfort himself
with the idea that the man addressing him was merely an ignorant,
half-mad, enthusiastic tailor, from whom decent conduct could not be
expected. He was still smiling when Daniel Thwaite closed the door,
and he almost laughed as he asked his clerk whether that energetic
gentleman had taken himself down-stairs. "Oh, yes, sir; he glared
at me when I opened the door, and rushed down four steps at a time."
But, on the whole, the Serjeant was contented with the interview. It
would, no doubt, have been better had he said nothing of the four
hundred a year. But in the offering of bribes there is always that
danger. One can never be sure who will swa