I know you can do
that. Can you do no more?"
"What more can you expect from me, sir?" asked Betteredge, with an
appearance of the utmost humility.
"I expect more--from what you said just now."
"Mere boasting, Mr. Franklin," returned the old man obstinately. "Some
people are born boasters, and they never get over it to their dying day.
I'm one of them."
There was only one way to take with him. I appealed to his interest in
Rachel, and his interest in me.
"Betteredge, would you be glad to hear that Rachel and I were good
friends again?"
"I have served your family, sir, to mighty little purpose, if you doubt
it!"
"Do you remember how Rachel treated me, before I left England?"
"As well as if it was yesterday! My lady herself wrote you a letter
about it; and you were so good as to show the letter to me. It said that
Miss Rachel was mortally offended with you, for the part you had taken
in trying to recover her jewel. And neither my lady, nor you, nor
anybody else could guess why.
"Quite true, Betteredge! And I come back from my travels, and find her
mortally offended with me still. I knew that the Diamond was at the
bottom of it, last year, and I know that the Diamond is at the bottom of
it now.
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