"By all means," said Raffles, restoring the paper to its envelope. "It's
an ugly little load for one man's soul, I admit; but you must see it was
about time somebody beat you at your own beastly game."
"It's a pack of blithering lies," retorted Levy, "and you haven't beaten
me yet. Stick to facts within your own knowledge, and then tell me if
your precious Garlands haven't brought their troubles on themselves?"
"Certainly they have," said Raffles. "But it isn't your treatment of the
Garlands that has brought you to this pretty pass."
"What is it, then?"
"Your treatment of me, Mr. Levy."
"A cursed crook like you!"
"A party to a pretty definite bargain, however, and a discredited person
only so far as that bargain is concerned."
"And the rest!" said the money-lender, jeering feebly. "I know more about
you than you guess."
"I should have put it the other way round," replied Raffles, smiling.
"But we are both forgetting ourselves, prisoner in the bunk. Kindly note
that your trial is resumed, and further contempt will not be allowed to
go unpurged. You referred a moment ago to my unfortunate friends; you say
they were the engineers of their own misfortunes. That might be said of
all who ever put themselves in your clutches. You squeeze them as hard as
the law will let you, and in this case I don't see how the law is to
interfere.
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