Wylder's Hand

g of the Pers

sh fine girl,' s

his coat off and his cue in his hand, and had lighted a

he corners of his eyes, and smiling in a sl

? and she liked me once devilish well, I can tell you. She was t

file had something of a Grecian character, but his face was too broad - very brown, rather a bloodless brown - and he had a pair of great, dense, vulgar, black whiskers. He was very vain of his teeth - his only real

not call for brandy-and-water. He had either grown coarser a great deal, or I more decent, during our separation

, and must give up talking that way. People won't like it, you know; they'll

I think he prays rather more than is good for his clients; mind I spell it with an 'a,' not with an 'e;'

doesn't he? And I don't see that it can do him any

hink he comes it a little too strong - two sermons

do him any har

and endowments, and purchases of building sites, and trust deeds; I dare say it brings him in two or three hundred a year, eh?' And Wylder laughe

; and to be so in his line of business he mu

I'm a miserable sinner, but there's mercy above, and I don't hide my faults. I don't set up for a light or a saint; I'm just what the Prayer-book says - neither more nor less - a miserable sinner. There's only one good thing I can safely say for myself - I am no Pharisee; that's all; I

and his prayer was -'I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, s

another gam

kes him, and you know the marriage is a sensible sort of thing, and I'm determined, of course, to carry it through; but, hang it, a fellow can't help thinking sometimes there are other things besides money, and Dorcas is not my style. Rachel's more th

fellows, he was a bit of a screw. But he could do a handsome and generous thing for himself. His selfishness would expand nobly, and rise above his prudential considerations,

, Charlie?' said Wyld

Mark. The luckiest dog in Eng

hink, considering how well off I

titude, you'd build a temple to Fortun

to do with it,' says

ainly, neit

d, though I'm laughing.' (Mark swore now and then, but I ta

k, say wha

in his leg. We had very rough weather - a gale for two days and a night almost - and a heavy swell after. In the night time we picked up three poor d

' I interposed, my sens

llows with him interpreted, and they were all anxious to get ashore. Poor devils, they had a notion, I believe, we were going to sell them for slaves, and he made me a present of a ring, and told me a long yarn about it. It was a talisman, it seems, a

t these Persian letters on the inside, for that's the oddest thing about it. Hang it, I can't pull it off - I'm growing as fat as a pig - but they are like a queer little string of flowers; and I showed it to a clever fellow at Malta - a missionary chap - and he read it off sli

ished, after the pattern of Othello's tales of Anthropophagites and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, one of the many varieties of fascination which h

and a London life would have been Peru and Paradise t

not rub it and bring up that confounded ugly

nd Larkin says, with smart management, I shall have a rental of thirteen thousand before three years! And that's only the beginning, by George! Sir Henry Twisden can't hold his s

and grinned, with

fore. I look a-head a bit, eh? and

d with cunnin

like a bet. What do you say? I'll buy you that twenty-five guinea book of pictures - what's its name? - if you give me three

ome out as an

ike - at the right side, of course, and that is the way to manage it. Thirteen thousand a year - the oldest family in the

elation, and just then the gong sou

Women are so enigmatical - some in everything - all in matters of the heart. Don't they sometimes actually admire what is repulsive? Does not brutality in our s

at the Hall, and the servants paid her much respect, which I look upon as a sign that the young heiress liked her and treated her with consideration

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