"
The bleared eye rolled with a sort of self-congratulation, and the
coins jingled more loudly.
"A pound ain't no use; nor yet two pound; nor yet five pound. An'
five pound's what I never 'ad in fifty year. There's a good deal
more than five pound 'ere now, Mr. Waymark; I've reckoned it up in
my 'cad. What d' you think I'm a-goin' for to do with it?"
He asked this question after a pause, with his head bent forward,
his countenance screwed into the most hideous expression of cunning
and gratified desire.
"I'm a-goin'," he said, with the emphasis of a hoarse whisper, "I
a-goin' to drink myself dead! That's what I'm a-goin' to do, Mr.
Waymark. My four friends ain't what they used for to be, an' 'cos I
ain't got enough of 'em. It's unsatisfaction, that's what it is, as
brings the burnin' i' th' inside, an' the devils in the 'cad. Now
I've got money, an' for wunst in my life I'll be satisfied an'
'appy. And then I'll go where there's _real_ burnin', an' _real_
devils--an' let 'em make the most o' Slimy!"
Waymark felt his blood chill with horror. For years after, the face
of Slimy, as it thus glared at him, haunted him in dreamful nights.
Dante saw nothing more fearful in any circle of hell.
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