Nobody will pay you well for blasting my name:
I know the worst you can do against me, and I shall brave it if you
dare to thrust yourself upon me again. Get up, sir, and do as I
order you, without noise, or I will send for a policeman to take
you off my premises, and you may carry your stories into every
pothouse in the town, but you shall have no sixpence from me to pay
your expenses there."
Bulstrode had rarely in his life spoken with such nervous energy:
he had been deliberating on this speech and its probable effects
through a large part of the night; and though he did not trust to its
ultimately saving him from any return of Raffles, he had concluded
that it was the best throw he could make. It succeeded in enforcing
submission from the jaded man this morning: his empoisoned system
at this moment quailed before Bulstrode's cold, resolute bearing,
and he was taken off quietly in the carriage before the family
breakfast time. The servants imagined him to be a poor relation,
and were not surprised that a strict man like their master, who held
his head high in the world, should be ashamed of such a cousin
and want to get rid of him. The banker's drive of ten miles with
his hated companion was a dreary beginning of the Christmas day;
but at the end of the drive, Raffles had recovered his spirits,
and parted in a contentment for which there was the good reason
that the banker had given him a hundred pounds.
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