poor foreign people you trapped. They defy you, and I'll do my best to
draw your teeth. Now for the annuity. You want one to believe 'you
thought you frightened "Government," eh?'

'Annual proof was afforded me, sir.'

'Oh! annual! through Mr. Charles Adolphus Bannerbridge, deceased!'

Janet stepped up to my aunt Dorothy to persuade her to leave the room,
but she declined, and hung by me, to keep me out of danger, as she hoped,
and she prompted me with a guarding nervous squeeze of her hand on my arm
to answer temperately when I was questioned:

'Harry, do you suspect Government paid that annuity?'

'Not now, certainly.'

'Tell the man who 'tis you suspect.'

My aunt Dorothy said: 'Harry is not bound to mention his suspicions.'

'Tell him yourself, then.'

'Does it matter--?'

'Yes, it matters. I'll break every plank he walks on, and strip him
stark till he flops down shivering into his slough--a convicted common
swindler, with his dinners and Balls and his private bands! Richmond,
you killed one of my daughters; t' other fed you, through her agent, this
Mr. Charles Adolphus Bannerbridge, from about the date of your snaring my