"Well, out with the shiners."

"Do you promise or not?"

"I promise."

"There are your ten guineas. If in half an hour you are not gone--why,
then--"

"Then?"

"Why, then you have robbed me of ten guineas, and must take the usual
consequences of robbery."

Darvil started to his feet--his eyes glared--he grasped the
carving-knife before him.

"You are a bold fellow," said the banker, quietly; "but it won't do. It
is not worth your while to murder me; and I am a man sure to be missed."

Darvil sank down, sullen and foiled. The respectable man was more than
a match for the villain.

"Had you been as poor as I,--Gad! what a rogue you would have been!"

"I think not," said the banker; "I believe roguery to be a very bad
policy. Perhaps once I /was/ almost as poor as you are, but I never
turned rogue."

"You never were in my circumstances," returned Darvil, gloomily. "I was