town who lodges above and does odd jobs for
me,--brushes my coat, cleans my shoes, and after his day's work goes an
errand now and then. Make yourself scarce, Beck! Anatomy, vanish!"

Beck grinned, nodded, pulled hard at a flake of his hair, and closed the
door.

"One of your brotherhood, that?" asked Jason, carelessly.

"He, oaf? No," said Grabman, with profound contempt in his sickly
visage. "He works for his bread,--instinct! Turnspits and truffle-dogs
and some silly men have it! What an age since we met! Shall I mix you a
tumbler?"

"You know I never drink your vile spirits; though in Champagne and
Bordeaux I am any man's match."

"And how the devil do you keep old black thoughts out of your mind by
those washy potations?"

"Old black thoughts--of what?"

"Of black actions, Jason. We have not met since you paid me for
recommending the nurse who attended your uncle in his last illness."

"Well, poor coward?"

Grabman knit his thin eyebrows and gnawed his blubber lips.

"I am no coward, as you know."

"Not when a thing is to be done, but after it is done. You brave the
substance, and tremble at the shadow. I dare say you see ugly goblins in
the dark, Grabman?"

"Ay, ay; but it is no use talking to you. You call yourself Jason
because of your yellow hair, or your love for the golden fleece; but
your old comrades call you 'Rattlesnake,' and you have its blood, as its
venom."

"And its charm, man," added Jason, with a strange smile, that, though
hypocritical and constrained, had yet a certain softness, and added
greatly to the comeliness of features which many might call beautiful,
and all would allow to be regular and symmetrical. "I shall find at
least ten love-letters on my table when I go home. But enough of these
fopperies, I am here on business."

"Law, of course; I am your man. Who's the victim?" and a hideous grin
on Grabman's face contrasted the sleek smile that yet lingered upon his
visitor's.

"No; something less hazardous, but not less lucrative than our old
practices. This is a business that may bring you hundreds, thousands;
that may take you from this hovel to speculate at the West End; that may
change your gin into Lafitte, and your herring into venison; that may
lift the broken attorney again upon the wheel,--again to roll down, it
may be; but that is your affair."

"'Fore Gad, open the case," cried Grabman, eagerly, and shoving aside
the ignoble relics of his supper, he leaned his