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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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999 ‘Not for love of the lady,’ replied Gride, ‘for he said that no word of love--his very words--had ever passed between ’em.’ ‘He said!’ repeated Ralph, contemptuously. ‘But I like him for one thing, and that is, his giving you this fair warning to keep your--what is it?--Tit-tit or dainty chick--which?--under lock and key. Be careful, Gride, be careful. It’s a triumph, too, to tear her away from a gallant young rival: a great triumph for an old man! It only remains to keep her safe when you have her--that’s all.’ ‘What a man it is!’ cried Arthur Gride, affecting, in the extremity of his torture, to be highly amused. And then he added, anxiously, ‘Yes; to keep her safe, that’s all. And that isn’t much, is it?’ ‘Much!’ said Ralph, with a sneer. ‘Why, everybody knows what easy things to understand and to control, women are. But come, it’s very nearly time for you to be made happy. You’ll pay the bond now, I suppose, to save us trouble afterwards.’ ‘Oh what a man you are!’ croaked Arthur. ‘Why not?’ said Ralph. ‘Nobody will pay you interest for the money, I suppose, between this and twelve o’clock; will they?’ ‘But nobody would pay you interest for it either, you know,’ returned Arthur, leering at Ralph with all the cunning and slyness he could throw into his face. ‘Besides which,’ said Ralph, suffering his lip to curl into a smile, ‘you haven’t the money about you, and you weren’t prepared for this, or you’d have brought it with you; and there’s nobody you’d so much like to accommodate as me. I see. We trust each other in about an equal degree. Are you ready?’ Gride, who had done nothing but grin, and nod, and chatter, |
