Bradley looked at the fire, with a working face, and was silent for a while. At last he said, with what seemed an inconsistent composure of voice and feature:
“You can’t get blood out of a stone, Riderhood.”
“I can get money out of a schoolmaster though.”
“You can’t get out of me what is not in me. You can’t wrest from me what I have not got. Mine is but a poor calling. You have had more than two guineas from me, already. Do you know how long it has taken me (allowing for a long and arduous training) to earn such a sum?”
“I don’t know, nor I don’t care. Yours is a ’spectable calling. To save your ’spectability, it’s worth your while to pawn every article of clothes you’ve got, sell every stick in your house, and beg and borrow every penny you can get trusted with. When you’ve done that and handed over, I’ll leave you. Not afore.”
“How do you mean, you’ll leave me?”
“I mean as I’ll keep you company, wherever you go, when you go away from here. Let the lock take care of itself. I’ll take care of you, once I’ve got you.”
Bradley again looked at the fire. Eyeing him aside, Riderhood took up his pipe, refilled it, lighted it, and sat smoking. Bradley leaned his elbows on his knees, and his head upon his hands, and looked at the fire with a most intent abstraction.
“Riderhood,” he said, raising himself in his chair, after a long silence, and drawing out his purse and putting it on the table. “Say I part with this, which is all the money I have; say I let you have my watch; say that every quarter, when I draw my salary, I pay you a certain portion of it.”