“You advised her,” shouted Tom indignantly. “Come, that’s a pretty thing. I thought you was on our side, Sam’el Cross.”
“A lawyer,” returned Samuel sententiously, “a lawyer is on the side what pays best; an’ this here job ought to be good for a rise for me. ’Twill be but fair that I should share some of the governor’s pickings, and he’ll make a good thing out of it, you might be sure.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” said one of the lovers dolefully. “He be uncommon near, your boss be, and it do seem ’ard o’ you, Sam’el, to go a-desertin’ of we, arter leadin’ us on, so to speak. You could stop Anne Clarke from takin’ out this here summons or whatever it be, so soon as look at her, couldn’t ’ee now?”
“And if you was to go and threaten Willcocks with the notion of it, he’d be off like a shot, that’s easy seen.”
“So ’tis,” agreed the clerk. “I reckon he’d skip if I was to tell him all that his little charmer said to-day. He! He!”
“Well then,” said Jim, and paused—“that’s how it is,” he added lamely. “The job ’ud be easy done.”
“Jus’ so,” responded Cross. “The easiest thing in the world. But I’m not for undertaking no jobs as are not worth my while. Now I might get rid o’ Trooper Willcocks for a five-pun’ note, not less.”
A pause of consternation ensued; then Jim Hardy thumped the table with his fist. “I think it ’ud be easier and cheaper to break the feller’s boanes straight off,” he shouted.
Sam extended a forefinger in his direction, “You look out, Jim! You should know better nor say such things in the hearin’ o’ them whose dooty it is to uphold the law. If any harm comes to Trooper Willcocks, I shall be bound in conscience to give my evidence. Now, gentlemen, what be all looking so glum for? Five pound ain’t such a terror! It needn’t be paid in a note if it comes to that, nor all at the one time. Half within the week, say, an’ t’other half at the end o’ the month. I wouldn’t be hard with you, an’ Trooper Willcocks would certainly be a good riddance.”
They gathered round him again and after much argument, some laughter, and a good deal of swearing, came to terms with Samuel, who carried away with him that night a curious document, signed by half a dozen names, and drawn up entirely to his own satisfaction.