After all a thousand pounds is a trifle to rid you of an upstart, who may chance to deprive you of tens of thousands." "Did I hear you aright ?" asked Trenchard, with startling eagerness.
"Certainly," replied Jonathan, with the most perfect _sangfroid_, "I'll undertake to free you from the boy.

That's part of the bargain." "Is he alive!" vociferated Trenchard.
"To be sure," returned Wild; "he's not only alive, but likely for life, if we don't clip the thread." Sir Rowland caught at a chair for support, and passed his hand across his brow, on which the damp had gathered thickly.
"The intelligence seems new to you.

I thought I'd been sufficiently explicit," continued Jonathan.

"Most persons would have guessed my meaning." "Then it was _not_ a dream!" ejaculated Sir Rowland in a hollow voice, and as if speaking to himself.

"I _did_ see them on the platform of the bridge--the child and his preserver! They were _not_ struck by the fallen ruin, nor whelmed in the roaring flood,--or, if they _were_, they escaped as I escaped.