"Whether the money is
yours, or neighbour Liar's--and it is as likely as not neither's--that
talk about despising money's what but a silly lie? 'Twas all sour
grapes--sour grapes. He had cunning enough for envy, and pride enough
for shame; and at last there was naught but cunning left wherewith to
patch up a clout for him and his shame to be gone in. I watched him
set out on his pestilent pilgrimage, crazed and stubborn, and not a
groat to call his own."
"Yet I have heard say he came of a moneyed stock," said Pliable. "The
Sects of Privy Opinion were rare wealthy people, and they, so 'tis
said, were his kinsmen. Truth is, for aught I know, Christian must
have been in some degree a very liberal rascal, with all his faults."
He tittered.
"Oh! he was liberal enough," said Mr. Malice suavely: "why, even on
setting out, he emptied his wife's purse into a blind beggar's
hat!--his that used to bleat, 'Cast thy bread--cast thy bread upon the
waters!' whensoever he spied Christian stepping along the street. They
say," he added, burying his clever face in his mug, "the Heavenly
Jerusalem lieth down by the weir.
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