turning king's evidence and being
executioner to another. No, no: it is not to your common rogues that I
may dare trust my secret,--my secret, which is my life! It is precisely
of such a fine, Athenian, moral rogue as I shall make my proud friend
that I am in want. But he has some silly scruples; we must beat them
away: we must not be too rash; and above all, we must leave the best
argument to poverty. Want is your finest orator; a starving wife,
a famished brat,--he! he!--these are your true tempters,--your true
fathers of crime, and fillers of jails and gibbets. Let me see: he
has no money, I know, but what he gets from that bookseller. What
bookseller, by the by? Ah, rare thought! I'll find out, and cut off that
supply. My lady wife's cheek will look somewhat thinner next month, I
fancy--he! he! But 't is a pity, for she is a glorious creature! Who
knows but I may serve two purposes? However, one at present! business
first, and pleasure afterwards; and, faith, the business is damnably
like that of life and death."

Muttering such thoughts as these, Crauford took his way one evening to
Glendower's house.

CHAPTER XLII.

Iago.--Virtue; a fig!--'t is in ourselves that we are thus
and thus.--Othello.

"So, so, my little one, don't let me disturb you. Madam, dare I venture
to hope your acceptance of this fruit? I chose it myself, and I am
somewhat of a judge. Oh! Glendower, here is the pamphlet you wished to
see."

With this salutation, Crauford drew his chair to the table by which
Glendower sat, and entered into conversation with his purposed victim. A
comely and a pleasing countenance had Richard Crauford! the lonely light
of the room fell upon a face which, though forty years of guile had
gone over it, was as fair and unwrinkled as a boy's. Small, well-cut
features; a blooming complexion; eyes of the lightest blue; a forehead
high, though narrow; and a mouth from which the smile was never
absent,--these, joined to a manner at once soft and confident, and an
elegant though unaffected study of dress, gave to Crauford a personal
appearance well suited to aid the effect of his hypocritical and
dissembling mind.

"Well, my friend," said he, "always at your books, eh? Ah! it is a happy
taste; would that I had cultivated it more; but we who are condemned to
business have little leisure to follow our own inclinations. It is only
on Sundays that I have time to read; and then (to say truth) I am an
old-