Talk of something else.
Anything you like; and the sooner the better."
Forbidden to discourse any more concerning his friend's affairs, Zack
veered about directly, and began to discourse concerning his own.
Candor was one of his few virtues: and he now confided to Mat the
entire history of his tribulations, without a single reserved point at
any part of the narrative, from beginning to end.
Without putting a question, or giving an answer, without displaying the
smallest astonishment or the slightest sympathy, Mat stood gravely
listening until Zack had quite done. He then went to the corner of the
room where the round table was; pulled the upturned lid back upon the
pedestal; drew from the breast pocket of his coat a roll of
beaver-skin; slowly undid it; displayed upon the table a goodly
collection of bank notes; and pointing to them, said to young
Thorpe,--"Take what you want."
It was not easy to surprise Zack; but this proceeding so completely
astonished him, that he stared at the bank notes in speechless
amazement. Mat took his pipe from a nail in the wall, filled the bowl
with tobacco, and pointing with the stem towards the table, gruffly
repeated,--"Take what you want."
This time, Zack found words in which to express himself, and used them
pretty freely to praise his new friend's unexampled generosity, and to
decline taking a single farthing.
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