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Back in Ardevora I can make between seventy and eighty pounds a year at that game easy." Bosistow scratched his head. "You've been making the most of your time. Now I've been busy in my way, too, but seemin' to me the only trade I've learned is prison-breakin'. Not much to keep a wife on, as you say. Still, a bargain's a bargain." "Oh, sutt'nly," says Abe; "that is if your conscience allows it."
But what made Bosistow glad at the time, and vicious after, was that on his way he fell in with a draft of prisoners, and, among them, with Abe Cummins, who, so to say, had reached the same place by walking a tenth part of the distance.
To keep to my story, though which is about Abe Cummins and Billy Bosistow. It was just in these unhappy conditions that the difference in the two men came out. Abe took his downfall very quiet from the first.
But Bosistow and Cornish agreed 'twould be more neighbourly to accept, and, to tell the truth, they didn't quite know how to behave with so many eyes upon them.
He showed them no letter, but the increase was paid regularly for eight months; after which a new Commandant came, and it ceased. They could never find out if the supply ceased, or into whose pocket it went if it came. From that time Bosistow had two things to brood upon escape and Selina.
Michael's Mount; and fetching up to Mousehole Island, the captain hailed a mackerel boat to come alongside and take ashore some officers with despatches. Abe Cummins and Billy Bosistow were both on deck, you may be sure, watching the boat as the fishermen brought her alongside.
And Billy Bosistow, or Uncle Billy, was my father's father's' stepson. You needn't take any trouble to get that clear in your mind, because our family never owned him after he came home from the French war prisons and took up with his drinking habits; and that comes into the story, too.
Wolfe took a fancy to him, and lent him an old book on "Navigation" Hamilton Moore's; and over that Abe would sit by the hour, with his room-mates drunk and fighting round him, and copy out tables and work out sums. All his money went in pen and ink instead of the liquor which the jailors smuggled in. Billy Bosistow was a very different pair of shoes.
So there was; but the way she came between them was curious, for all that. First of all, you must know, that up to the year 'three Abe Cummins and Bill Bosistow hadn't known what it is to quarrel or miss meeting each other every day.
I have told you the facts, my friend, and leave them to your judgment. The legend is that as Christ left the judgment hall on His way to Calvary, Kartophilus smote Him, saying, "Man, go quicker!" and was answered, "I indeed go quickly; but thou shalt tarry till I come again." You've heard tell, I dare say, about Landlord Cummins and Billy Bosistow, and the great jealousy there was between them.
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