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582 THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP
emptied them; and, tapping her head, she again applied to the
cupboard, and took from thence a little store of spoons and forks,
and then a brooch, and then a watch ; and she piled these all up
in a dish, and she said, " Now, Mr. Hunt, I will give you all these
for that bill." And she looked up at Philip's picture, which hung
over the parson's bloodshot satyr face. " Take these," she said,
"and give me that! There's two hundred pound, I know; and
there's thirty-four, and two eighteen, thirty-six eighteen, and there's
the plate and watch, and I want that bill."
" What ! have you got all this, you little dear ?" cried Hunt,
dropping back into his chair again. " Why, you're a little fortune,
by Jove—a pretty little fortune, a little discountess, a little wife,
a little fortune. I say, I'm a University man; I could write
alcaics once as well as any man. I'm a gentleman. I say, how
much have you got ? Count it over again, my dear."
And again she told him the amount of the gold, and the notes,
and the silver, and the number of the poor little spoons.
A thought came across the fellow's boozy brain : " If you offer
so much," says he, "and you're a little discountess, the bill's worth
more ; that fellow must be making his fortune ! Or do you know
about it ? I say, do you know about it? No. I'll have my
bond. I'll have my bond!" And he gave a tipsy imitation of
Shylock, and lurched back into his chair, and laughed.
" Let's have a little more, and talk about things," said the poor
Little Sister; and she daintily heaped her little treasures and
arranged them in her dish, and smiled upon the parson laughing
in his chair.
" Caroline," says he, after a pause, " you are still fond of that
old bald-headed scoundrel ! That's it ! Just like you women—
just like, but I won't tell. No, no, I won't tell ! You are fond
of that old swindler still, I say ! Wherever did you get that lot
of money ? Look here now—with that and this little bill in my
pocket, there's enough to carry us on for ever so long. And when
this money's gone, I tell you I know who'll give us more, and who
can't refuse us, I tell you. Look here, Caroline, dear Caroline !
I'm an old fellow, I know ; but I'm a good fellow : I'm a classical
scholar : and I'm a gentleman."
The classical scholar and gentleman bleared over his words as
he uttered them, and with his vinous eyes and sordid face gave a
leer, which must have frightened the poor little lady to whom he
proffered himself as a suitor, for she started back with a pallid face,
and an aspect of such dislike and terror, that even her guest remarked
it.
" I said I was a scholar and gentleman," he shrieked again. "Do