Conway; accost him on the road; represent
my necessities to him, and request a small loan out of his abundant
means, to prevent myself from being deprived of my luxuries--liquor and
cards. Is that a roundabout way of saying I intended to act the
highwayman, perhaps the--murderer--on this occasion? By no means,
madam! What is highway robbery? Is it not the brutal and wanton robbery
of the poor as well as the rich? Well, I was not going to rob anybody.
I was going to request a small loan--and so far from intending
violence, or--murder--," he uttered that word always in a hesitating
voice--"I swear, I had no such intention. I was entirely unarmed; upon
my whole person there was not one deadly weapon--it was only by
accident that I found, when riding out of the court-house, that I had a
small pen-knife in my pocket. This I had picked up, by pure accident
from the table of the clerk's office, where some one had laid it down.
I had carelessly commenced paring my nails with it--my attention was
attracted by something else. I finished paring my nails, and without
being aware of what I was doing, put the knife in my pocket.
"Well, you may think, perhaps, all this is irrelevant. You are
mistaken. Many things turned on that knife. The devil himself placed it
in my grasp that day!"
XXX.
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