The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 398: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE SPONGING - HOUSE 367 brother, the pander to your infamous designs upon her? Mr. Emmerson, your guilt has been damning, your conduct toward me atrocious and infernal. Can you wonder, then, that I seek the deadliest vengeance? By Heaven! I were a coward, a traitor to the very name of man, did I tamely submit to all the wrongs I have received from you. Yes, I have accomplished your ruin, and I glory in it. And now let me tell you, in conclusion, that your detaining creditor will not take one shilling less than the whole amount, be- cause I have privately assured him that, to my certain knowledge, he will get every farthing if he only holds out. In a word, I have persuaded him that you have thousands in your possession, but that your aim is to cheat your credi- tors, and to keep as much as you possibly can for yourself.”’ “But what you have said is false,’’ cried Emmerson, now furious with intense hatred and rage. “TI know it,” said Varian, coolly, “ but you cannot per- suade your creditor to think otherwise than what I have told him.”’ ‘We shall see,’’ rejoined Emmerson, doggedly. ‘‘ Now, then, our interview need last no longer.” “Ah! you think that you will be enabled to escape from the web wherein I have enmeshed you?’ cried Varian, ‘“but you are mistaken. In three days more that bill which you discounted at your banker’s will fall due, and, when presented for payment, we shall see whether it is a forgery or not.” Gasping for breath, with hideous workings of his counte- nance, and with trembling limbs, the wretched Emmerson fell back annihilated in his seat, and as at that moment the dirty servant-girl came to lay the cloth for his dinner, Theodore Varian availed himself of the opportunity of the door being unlocked to quit the room. But ere he dis- appeared, he flung back one last look of the bitterest hate and direst malignity upon the wretched man whom his vengeance was thus consigning to eternal perdition. Three days afterward the bill came due, and was pro- nounced to be a forgery. Criminal proceedings were forth- with adopted, and Mr. Emmerson, the once opulent money- broker and member of the Common Council, was transferred to Newgate. CONnNIClOOO© a <S (CO)