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

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“‘Why,’ replied the gipsy, ‘I knowed he was in it all from first to last, and had picked me up to serve his own ends. I dogged him one morning going down to the stables.’

“Please, my lord,” says I, coming the crawl to him, ‘I am an ill-used man.’

“‘Indeed! And who has ill-used you, Will?’ he asked, as if he had been my best friend. So I took courage, and up and told him all.

“‘And who is Jim Dempster?’ said he, when he had heard me out, looking as innocent as a blessed saint.

“‘Why, the agent of your friends who belong to the big betting firm where I was after I left you. Jim is the little man you spoke to the other day at Ascot about the running of Butterfly.’

“‘My friends, you scoundrel! How dare you call those fellows my friends?’ he cried out. ‘Perhaps you, too, are a friend of mine, as you have been my groom and rode my horses. Don’t you have the audacity to speak of such persons as my friends again.’ Then turning as serious as a barn owl, he looked me in the face, and continued, ‘You have escaped the law, my man, this time. Take my advice, quit bad company, and turn to an honest course of life. But, mark me, if ever you cross my path again, and are impudent enough to speak to me, I shall give you into custody on your own confession,’ and away he strode to the stable.