Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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“Let go, I say!” he ejaculated. “I’ll soon show you who is master here. Let go, will yer?”

“No I will not. You cannot be so cruel as to rob me of this?”

“Cruel—​rob!” he cried, in a fury. “Leave the matter to me. I’ll pay the rent when it suits me.”

Here he burst out into another mocking laugh.

“John,” said his wife, in a beseeching tone, “you are not going to serve me like this. You shall not spend this money in drink, not if I die for it.”

“Oh—​oh! indeed. You are likely to die, let me tell you that, if you don’t mind what you are about.”

Mrs. Bristow was in an agony of despair. She knew perfectly well that if she suffered her husband to depart with her little hoard there would not be the most remote chance of her seeing it again.

There is an old saying, “Tread upon a worm and it will turn,” and the unhappy wife was an example of this.

She clung to her husband with a firmness which fairly astonished him.

“You shall not take away the money, John. I tell you you shall not have it. Give it me back at once.”