* * * * *
Adolf, as blackmailer, in which role he now showed himself, differed in
some respects from the conventional blackmailer of fiction. It may be
that he was doubtful as to how much James would stand, or it may be
that his soul as a general rule was above money. At any rate, in actual
specie he took very little from his victim. He seemed to wish to be
sent to the village oftener than before, but that was all. Half a crown
a week would have covered James's financial loss.
But he asserted himself in another way. In his most light-hearted
moments Adolf never forgot the reason which had brought him to England.
He had come to the country to learn the language, and he meant to do
it. The difficulty which had always handicapped him hitherto--namely,
the poverty of the vocabularies of those in the servants' quarters--was
now removed. He appointed James tutor-in-chief of the English language
to himself, and saw that he entered upon his duties at once.
The first time that he accosted James in the passage outside the
classroom, and desired him to explain certain difficult words in a
leading article of yesterday's paper, James was pleased. Adolf, he
thought, regarded the painful episode as closed. He had accepted the
half-crown as the full price of silence, and was now endeavouring to be
friendly in order to make amends.
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