should jostle me just now, and so give me a chance to speak. I spotted you as an Englishman and a gentleman a fortnight ago, and I’ve noticed you pass along the Bowery every day since. I am in need of an Englishman, who is also a gentleman, to take on a job with a fortune—a moderate fortune—at the back of it.”
“You can hardly have mistaken me for an investor,” said Hanbury, with a quizzical glance at his threadbare seams and dilapidated boots. “Believe me, I am a very broken-down gentleman; but still, my gentility survives, I suppose, and I am willing to treat it as a commercial asset, if that is what you mean.”
Mr. Jevons gulped down his liquor without comment and did not utter another word till the glasses had been replenished. Then, hitching his chair closer, he produced a pocket-book from which he extracted five one-hundred-dollar notes.
“Before we leave this place I shall hand these over to you for preliminary expenses—if we come to terms,” he said, watching the effect of the display on his companion’s face. Satisfied with the eager glance in the tired eyes, he proceeded more confidentially: “There
[14]
