"Now, Barry!" Mr. Smivvle expostulated, "my dear boy--"
"He's a cursed v-vampire, I tell you!" retorted Barrymaine, his pale
cheeks suddenly flushed, and his dark eyes flashing in swift passion,
--"he's a snake."
"Now, my dear fellow, calm yourself."
"Calm myself. How can I, when everything I have is his, when
everything I g-get belongs to him before--curse him--even before I
get it! I tell you, Dig, he's--he's draining my life away, drop by
drop! He's g-got me down with his foot on my neck--crushing me into
the mud. I say he's stamping me down into hell--damn him!"
"Restrain yourself, Barry, my dear boy, remember Mr. Beverley is our
guest--"
"Restrain myself--yes, Dig, yes. B-beg Mr. Beverley's pardon for me,
Dig. Not myself to-day,--but must restrain myself--certainly. Give
me some more brandy--ha! and pass bottle to Mr. Bev'ley, Dig. No,
sir? Ah well, help yourself, Dig. Must forgive exhibition of feeling,
sir, but I always do get carried away when I remember that inhuman
monster--God's curse on him!"
"Sir," said Barnabas, "whom do you mean?"
"Mean? ha! ha! oh damme, hark to that, Dig! Dev'lish witty I call
that--oh c-cursed rich! Whom do I mean? Why," cried Barrymaine,
starting up from the couch, "whom should I mean but Gaunt! Gaunt!
Gaunt!" and he shook his clenched fists passionately in the air. Then,
as suddenly he turned upon Barnabas with a wild, despairing gesture,
and stretching out his arms, pointed to each wrist in turn.
"D'ye see 'em?" he cried, "d'ye hear 'em; jangle? No? Ah, but they
are there! riveted on, never to come off, eating deeper into my
flesh every day! I'm shackled, I tell you,--fettered hand and foot.
Oh! egad, I'm an object lesson!--point a moral and adorn a tale,
--beware of p-prodigality and m-money lenders. Shackled--shackled
hand and foot, and must drag my chain until I f-fall into a debtor's
grave."
"No!" cried Barnabas, so suddenly that Ronald Barrymaine started,
and thereafter grew very high and haughty.
"Sir," said he with upflung head, "I don't permit my word to be--to
be--contra--dicted,--never did and never will. Though you see before
you a m-miserable wretch, yet that wretch is still a gentleman at
heart, and that wretch tells you again he's shackled, sir, hand and
foot--yes, damme, and so I am!"
"Well then," said Barnabas, "why not free yourself?"
Ronald Barrymaine sank down upon the couch, looked at Barnabas,
looked at Smivvle, drained his glass and shook his head.
"My dear Dig," said he, "your friend's either mad or drunk--mos'
probably drunk. Yes, that's it,--or else he's smoking me, and I
won't be smoked, no man shall laugh at me now that I'm down. Show
him the door, Dig. I--I won't have my private affairs discussed by
s-strangers, no, by heaven!"