Skinner," said Peggy softly; then to her master, "Shall I go for a
policeman, sir?"
Mr. Hardie reflected. "Yes," said he sternly: "there's no other course
with such a lump of treachery and ingratitude as this."
Peggy whipped on her bonnet.
"What a hurry you are in," whined Skinner: "a policeman ought to be the
last argument for old friends to run to." Then, fawning spitefully,
"Don't talk of indicting me, sir," said he; "it makes me shiver: why how
will you look when I up and tell them all how Captain Dodd was took with
apoplexy in our office, and how you nailed fourteen thousand pounds off
his senseless body, and forgot to put them down in your balance-sheet, so
they are not whitewashed off like the rest."
"Any witnesses to all this, Skinner?"
"Yes, sir."
"Who?"
"Well; your own conscience _for one,_" said Skinner.
"He is mad, Peggy," said Mr. Hardie, shrugging his shoulders. He then
looked Skinner full in the face, and said, "Nobody was ever seized with
apoplexy in my office. Nobody ever gave me L. 14,000. And if this is the
probable tale with which you come here to break the law and extort money,
leave my house this instant: and if ever you dare to utter this absurd
and malicious slander, you shall lie within four stone walls, and learn
what it is for a shabby vagabond to come without a witness to his back,
and libel a man of property and honour.
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