LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1093, 31 December 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

AN APPALLING APPETITE,

[From “ Tinsley’s Magazine.”] ‘ Domber !’ cried old Jonathan Grasper, with an impatient touch of the bell on tho large ■writing-table at which he was seated. ‘ Domber ! Why does the villain not answer ? Domber, I say I’ ‘ Coming, Mr Grasper ; coming ! I was only finishing this transfer for your signature, sir. I have been hard at work since five o’clock this morning to get it ready, sir,’ replied a shabbily-dressed man, entering at a side door.

‘ ¥ our duty, sir ; your cursed duty !’ was the ungracious response thrown snappishly to the poor clerk by his imperious master—for such evidently was the relation between the two. * Here, give me the transfer !’ snatching the document from the clerk’s hands, and dashing it on the table. ‘ I will look to this presently. But first I have to talk to you of another matter, Master Domber, What does this mean, sir ?’ handing an open letter to the clerk. ‘ Fine doings these, Master Domber ! How comes Sir Richard’s agent to pay off my mortgage on Brockle’s farm ? Did I not order you to foreclose ?’

* How could I foreclose, Mr Grasper, the money being paid V ‘ But how came the money to be paid, sir? —tell me that! That’s what I want to know ! How ?’

* Why, I suppose Brockle, when he found you determined, Mr Grasper, to drive him from the old family holding, appea’ed to Sir Richard for aid ; and the haronet, fin bug it a safe investment, stepped into your shoes.’ ‘ Stepped into my shoes ! Curse the fellow 1 But I will be even with him yet; and with you, too, Master Domber. I know it was you who put Brockle up to that dodge.’ ‘ What harm if I did ? You have got you money. What more would you have ?’ ‘ Fellow, you forget yourself ! You had better remember what you are, and that I hold you wholly in my power. You know that I can strip off your seeming respectability. Take care, sir; take care !’ The clerk struggled hard to overcome a violent emotion. He succeeded by a powerful effort of the will, and replied in the same calm steady voice in which he had spoken from the first, albeit with a tremor of suppressed excitement in it. * No, Mr Grasper, I do not forget myself. I remember but too well —but too well! Ah, you take good care that I should. That one dark hour in a long life of integrity ! Have I not been paying the bitter penalty ever since ?’ Then he continued, in a sudden burst of passionate pleading, * Ah, Mr Grasper, you know,—ay, none better than you—how sorely I was tempted. You know that it was done in a moment of distraction, to save my poor sick father from the horrors of a debtor’s prison. I had no dishonest intention, God knows. Had you but consented to pay me my wage and commission then due to me, this sad calamity would never have fallen on me. Even as it was, you know, Mr Grasper, that I should have replaced the money in ample time had you not come back so suddenly.’ ‘ High time I j|did—else had I found the bird flown, and my whole substance gone along with him. What! you had no dishonest intention ! To break open my cashbox, and rob me of a cool thousand to begin with ?’

* 0 Mr Grasper, you know that you had left the keys behind you, and that I had taken—or rather borrrowed—thirty pounds only, which were in fact due to me; and you know also that in a fortnight at the most I could and would have replaced the money,’ said the poor clerk appealingly. ‘I protest—’

‘ What care 1 for your protestations, sir ?’ replied Mr Grasper, with an ugly sneer. ‘ I hold your written confession, Master Douiber, as you well know, duly attested, and available at any time that I may choose to suspect you of another attempt to rob me. Remember, Master Bomber, that it is felony, to which no statute of limitation applies.’ ‘ Ah, I know but too well. I was lured on with devilish cunning ; I was caught in the toils; you threatened me with the gallows. I knew not what I was doing : you had me at your mercy.’ ‘ That’s your story, Master Bomber, is it ? I wonder what a jury would say to it, were you to try to palm that romance upon them. Besides, sir, what matters whether you stole thirty pounds or a thousand, and whether you opened the box with my own keys or with a jemmy' ? Ay, it might have been twisted into a hanging matter at the time. I think I let you off quite easy'. Suppose I did lure you on. What then ? You might surely' have defeated my purpose by simply keeping honest. What, I ask you, had ymir father’s debts to do with my money? What if I did not choose to pay' you your wage and commission to the day? You should have waited, instead of helping yourself out of my cash-box. Suppose I wanted to get the whip-hand of you. I have got it, you see ; and I mean to keep it, and to use it, too, pretty stiffly, I can tell you, Master Bomber. Hark ye, sir ; what do you think I retain you in my service for ?’

* Ah, I know but too well,’ cried the clerk passionately, ‘to be your drudge, your catspaw, your scapegoat, your ’ ‘ Silence, sir !’ angrily retorted the master. * I keep you to strictly execute my orders and blindly obey n.y behests. Take care, sir ! Never again dare to thwart me, lest I be tempted to forget your long and | sneeringly] faithful services. You can easily guess what 1 moan.’ ‘Hard lines,’ murmured JDomber meekly ‘ hard lines! But I must even submit. Were it not for my poor boy’s honest name ’

‘ Ay, 1 know !’ cried his employer derisively. ‘ Were it not for that triiliug consideration, 1 doubt not but that you would defy me to do my worst, and you would go and split upon me about that ton thousand pounds’ bond which ’ ‘You have purloined from the late Mr Walden’s papers and destroyed,’cried Bomber impetuously, with the most reckless disregard of all possible consequences to himself— ‘ thereby despoiling your dead friend’s orphaned child of half of her furtune, ’ (To hr. rMn.tin.ved.)