"Have you procured me that new drug I spoke of?" asked the master.

"Here it is," said the man, putting a small package on the table.

"Is it effectual?"

"So said the apothecary," answered the man; "and I tried it on a dog.
He sat quietly a quarter of an hour; then had a spasm or two, and was
dead. But, your honor, the dead carcass swelled horribly."

"Hush, villain! Have there--have there been inquiries for me,--mention
of me?"

"O, none, sir,--none, sir. Affairs go on bravely,--the new live. The
world fills up. The gap is not vacant. There is no mention of you.
Marry, at the alehouse I heard some idle topers talking of a murder
that took place some few years since, and saying that Heaven's
vengeance would come for it yet."

"Silence, villain, there is no such thing," said the young man; and,
with a laugh that seemed like scorn, he relapsed into his state of
sullen indifference; during which the servant stole away, after looking
at him some time, as if to take all possible note of his aspect. The
man did not seem so much to enjoy it himself, as he did to do these
things in a kind of formal and matter-of-course way, as if he were
performing a set duty; as if he were a subordinate fiend, and were
doing the duty of a superior one, without any individual malice of his
own, though a general satisfaction in doing what would accrue to the
agglomeration of deadly mischief. He stole away, and the master was