Well, I tell you, it isn't easy to come by; there is great danger to the honest folk who seek it, for these heretics are desperate people, and if they find a spy while they are engaged in devil-worship at one of their conventicles, why--they kill him." "I know all that, mother.

What are you trying to cover up that you are so talkative?
It isn't your usual way of doing business.

Well, it is a bargain--you shall have your money when you produce the evidence.
And now really if we stop here much longer people will begin to make remarks, for who shall escape aspersion in this censorious world?
So good-night, mother, good-night," and he turned to leave the room.
"No, Excellency," she croaked with a snort of indignation, "no pay, no play; I don't work on the faith of your Excellency's word alone." "How much ?" he asked again.
"A hundred florins down." Then for a while they wrangled hideously, their heads held close together in the patch of moonlight, and so loathsome did their faces look, so plainly was the wicked purpose of their hearts written upon them, that in that faint luminous glow they might have been mistaken for emissaries from the under-world chaffering over the price of a human soul.

At last the bargain was struck for fifty florins, and having received it into her hand Black Meg departed.
"Sixty-seven in all," she muttered to herself as she regained the street.

"Well, it was no use holding out for any more, for he hasn't got the cash.