upon this they parted.
“He has either painted his face, or he is consumedly sick,” thought the old Judge.
The light had shown more effectually upon his features as he turned to leave the room with a low bow, and they looked, he fancied, unnaturally chalky.
“D—— him!” said the Judge ungraciously, as he began to scale the stairs: “he has half-spoiled my supper.”
But if he had, no one but the Judge himself perceived it, and the evidence was all, as any one might perceive, the other way.
Chapter III
Lewis Pyneweck
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In the meantime the footman dispatched in pursuit of Mr. Peters speedily overtook that feeble gentleman. The old man stopped when he heard the sound of pursuing steps, but any alarms that may have crossed his mind seemed to disappear on his recognizing the livery. He very gratefully accepted the proffered assistance, and placed his tremulous arm within the servant’s for support. They had not gone far, however, when the old man stopped suddenly, saying,
“Dear me! as I live, I have dropped it. You heard it fall. My eyes, I fear, won’t serve me, and I’m unable to stoop low enough; but if you will look, you shall have half the find. It is a guinea; I carried it in my glove.”
The street was silent and deserted. The footman had hardly descended to what he termed his “hunkers,” and begun to search the pavement about the spot which the old man indicated, when Mr. Peters, who seemed very much exhausted, and breathed with difficulty, struck him a violent blow, from above, over the back of the head with a heavy instrument, and then another; and leaving him bleeding and senseless in the gutter, ran like a lamplighter down a lane to the right, and was gone.
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