s unquestionably Burton speaking--came to Jimmie
Dale now distinctly.

"No, I didn't! I tell you, I didn't! I--I hadn't the nerve."

Jimmie Dale slipped his black silk mask over his face; and with extreme
caution, on hands and knees, began to climb the stairs.

"So!" It was old Isaac now, in a half purr, half sneer. "And I was so
sure, my young friend, that you had. I was so sure that you were not
such a fool. Yes; I could even have sworn that they were in your pocket
now--what? It is too bad--too bad! It is not a pleasant thing to think
of, that little chair up the river in its horrible little room where--"

"For God's sake, Isaac--not that! Do you hear--not that! My God, I
didn't mean to--I didn't know what I was doing!"

Jimmie Dale crept up another step, another, and another. There was
silence for a moment in the room; then Burton again, hoarse-voiced:

"Isaac, I'll make good to you some other way. I swear I will--I swear
it! If I'm caught at this I'll--I'll get fifteen years for it."

"And which would you rather have?" Jimmie Dale could picture the oily
smirk, the shrug of his shoulders, the outthrust hands, palms upward,
elbows in at the hips, the fingers curved and wide apart--"fifteen
years, or what you get--for murder? Eh, my friend, you have thought of
that--eh? It is a very little price I ask--yes?"

"Damn you!" Burton's voice was shrill, then dropped to a half sob. "No,
no, Isaac, I didn't mean that. Only, for God's sake be merciful! It is
not only the risk of the penitentiary; it's more than that. I--I tried
to play white all my life, and until that cursed night there's no man
living could say I haven't. You know that--you know that, Isaac. I tell
you I couldn't do it this afternoon--I tell you I couldn't. I tried to
and--and I couldn't."

Jimmie Dale was lying flat on the little landing now, peering into the
room. Back a short distance from the doorway, a repulsive-looking
little man in unkempt clothes and soiled linen, with yellowish-skinned,
parchment face, out of which small black eyes shone cunningly and
shrewdly, sat at a bare deal table in a rickety chair; facing him across
the table stood a young man of not more than twenty-five, clean cut,
well dressed, but whose face was unnaturally white now, and whose hand,
as he extended it in a pleading gesture toward the other, trembled
visibly. Jimmie Dale's hand made its way quietly to his side pocket and
extracted his automatic.

Old Isaac humpe