"We made a bargain, and I adhered to it--have adhered to it up to this day."
"Quite correct. Every quarter-day I find paid into my bank the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds. Woe to you if there had been a single omission. I might have advertised for you, in terms which would have drawn unpleasant notice upon you; I would have left no stone unturned to unearth you. I think it is five years ago since we last met. It was not an amicable meeting; angry words passed between us. You gave me the money I asked for and insisted upon having, but you declined to accept the view I presented for your consideration, that you were but the treasurer of a common fund. We parted, not the best of friends, and the next thing I heard of you was conveyed in a letter you wrote to me from Brindisi--it was actually posted from there--informing me that you had left England never to return, and that the six hundred a year would be paid regularly into my bankers in quarterly instalments, as usual. My dear friend, that letter naturally did not please me, and I did not propose to submit patiently to the desertion. I was working for you, for your ease, for your safety; I had an establishment to keep up. My little private asylum in the country, with its patients and keepers, entails upon me a great expense. I am getting tired of it; it chains me down; I have to be very watchful and careful; I have to wheedle and bribe, and, besides, I have to live. I knew that you lied when you wrote that you had left England never to return; I knew that it was the only country in the world you cared to live in, and I set to work to discover your hiding place. For five years I have been hunting for you; I have been in London a dozen times; I have searched everywhere. Oh, the money you have cost me, every shilling of which you shall refund. You shall; I have kept an account, and you shall pay me not only what I am out of pocket, but so much a day for my personal labor. But you are extraordinarily cunning, and it is only now I have succeeded in tracking you down. And being tracked, I mean to keep my hold upon you; I mean to have my due; I mean to share equally with you. It was by the merest chance that I obtained a clue, and I followed it up, until, behold, in the person of M. Felix, who passes as a foreigner, I discover my dearest friend, Mr. Leonard Paget, a partner with me in a conspiracy which, if it were made public, would insure, for you, certainly, for me probably, penal servitude for life. Now, what is it you propose to do?"