When he went down stairs next morning, to beg Mrs. Robson to attend
his friend until his return, she mentioned how uneasy she was at
having heard him most of the preceding night moving above her head.
He was trying to account to her for his restlessness, by complaining
of a headache, but she interrupted him by saying, "O no, sir; I am
sure it is the hard boards you lie on, to accommodate the poor old
gentleman. I am certain you will make yourself ill."
Thaddeus thanked her for her solicitude; but declaring that all beds
hard, or soft, were alike to him, he left her more reconciled to his
pallet on the floor. And with his drawings in his pocket, once more
took the path to Great Newport Street.
Resentment against his fickle friend, and anxiety for the
tranquillity of General Butzou, whose age, infirmities and sufferings
threatened a speedy termination of his life, determined the count to
sacrifice all false delicacy and morbid feelings, and to hazard
another attempt at acquiring the means of affording those comforts to
the sick veteran which his condition demanded. Happen how it would,
he resolved that Butzou should never know the complete wreck of his
property. I shuddered at loading him with the additional distress of
thinking he was a burden on his protector.
Thaddeus passed the door of the printseller who had behaved so ill to
him on his first application; and walking to the farthest shop on the
same side, entered it.
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