ferocity in them, and Professor Higginson hated him in his heart.
Jimmy again assumed control.
"If there had been a law, sir, we 'd have sued you. We are sorry" (this repetition a little pompously) "and we do not want to expose you. Personally," he added, flicking the ash from his cigarette and putting on the man-of-the-world, "I find it an ungrateful thing to constrain an older man. But it will all be over soon, and what is more, we will do it decently if you pay like a gentleman."
At the word "pay" Professor Higginson's inexperience of the world convinced him that he was in the hands of criminals. He had read in certain detective stories how criminals were not, as some imagined, men universally deprived of collars, clad in woollen caps and armed with bludgeons, nor without exception of the uncultivated classes. He could remember many cases (in fiction) of the gentleman-criminal, nay, of the precocious gentleman-criminal—and apparently these were of the tribe.
For the second time that evening he came to a rapid decision and determined to pay.
He had upon him thirty shillings in gold, it was a sovereign and half sovereign, in the
