“I’ve not had such fine luck as you, by Jove! Things went confoundedly with me in New York; those Yankees are cool hands, and a man of gentlemanly feelings has no chance with them. I married when I came back—a nice woman in the tobacco trade—very fond of me—but the trade was restricted, as we say. She had been settled there a good many years by a friend; but there was a son too much in the case. Josh and I never hit it off. However, I made the most of the position, and I’ve always taken my glass in good company. It’s been all on the square with me; I’m as open as the day. You won’t take it ill of me that I didn’t look you up before. I’ve got a complaint that makes me a little dilatory. I thought you were trading and praying away in London still, and didn’t find you there. But you see I was sent to you, Nick—perhaps for a blessing to both of us.”
Mr Raffles ended with a jocose snuffle: no man felt his intellect more superior to religious cant. And if the cunning which calculates on the meanest feelings in men could be, called intellect, he had his share, for under the blurting rallying tone with which he spoke to Bulstrode, there was an evident selection of statements, as if they had been so many moves at chess. Meanwhile Bulstrode had determined on his move, and he said, with gathered resolution—
“You will do well to reflect, Mr. Raffles, that it is possible for a man to overreach himself in the effort to secure undue advantage. Although I am not in any way bound to you, I am willing to supply you with a regular annuity—in quarterly payments—so long as you fulfil a promise to remain at a distance from this neighborhood. It is in your power to choose. If you insist on remaining here, even for a short time, you will get nothing from me. I shall decline to know you.”
“Ha, ha!” said Raffles, with an affected explosion, “that reminds me of a droll dog of a thief who declined to know the constable.”
“Your allusions are lost on me sir,” said Bulstrode, with white heat; “the law has no hold on me either through your agency or any other.”
“You can’t understand a joke, my good fellow. I only meant that I should never decline to know you. But let us be serious. Your quarterly payment won’t quite suit me. I like my freedom.”
Here Raffles rose and stalked once or twice up and down the room, swinging his leg, and assuming an air of masterly meditation. At last he stopped opposite Bulstrode, and said, “I’ll tell you what! Give us a couple of hundreds—come, that’s modest—and I’ll go away—honor bright!—pick up my portmanteau and go away. But I shall not give up my Liberty for a dirty annuity. I shall come and go where I like. Perhaps it may suit me to stay away, and correspond with a friend; perhaps not. Have you the money with you?”
“No, I have one hundred,” said Bulstrode, feeling the immediate riddance too great a relief to be rejected on the ground of future uncertainties. “I will forward you the other if you will mention an address.”
“No, I’ll wait here till you bring it,” said Raffles. “I’ll take a stroll and have a snack, and you’ll be back by that time.”
Mr Bulstrode’s sickly body, shattered by the agitations he had gone through since the last evening, made him feel abjectly in the power of this loud invulnerable man. At that moment he snatched at a temporary repose to be won on any terms. He was rising to do what Raffles suggested, when the latter said, lifting up his finger as if with a sudden recollection—
“I did have another look after Sarah again, though I didn’t tell you; I’d a tender conscience about that pretty young woman. I didn’t find her, but I found out her husband’s name, and I made a note of it. But hang it, I lost my pocketbook. However, if I heard it, I should know it again. I’ve got my faculties as if I was in my prime, but names wear out, by Jove! Sometimes I’m no better than a confounded tax-paper before the names are filled in. However, if I hear of her and her family, you shall know, Nick. You’d like to do something for her, now she’s your step-daughter.”