promise."

"What promise do you refer to?"

"'What promise do I refer to?' You said if I would join you in
_kidnapping_--"

"Hush!" said Orton looking around, apprehensive of listeners.

"The young lady," Jones continued, "you would pay me the seven hundred
dollars you owed me, and two hundred dollars extra for my help."

Now, Orton Campbell knew very well that he had made this promise, but
the payment of nine hundred dollars he dreaded as much as some of my
readers would dread the extraction of half a dozen teeth. He had got all
he needed from Jones, and he decided that it would be safe to throw him
off. It might be dishonorable, but for that he cared little.

"I suppose you have my promise in writing, Jones?" he said, with a
sneer.

"No, I haven't, Mr. Campbell."

"Then you can't prove that I owe you anything, I take it."

"You don't mean to say, Mr. Orton, you'd cheat a poor man out of his
hard-earned money?" ejaculated Jones, who, in spite of his knowledge of
his employer's character, could hardly believe his ears.

"I never intended to give you such an enormous sum for the little you
have done for me."

"Didn't you promise it, sir?" demanded Jones, exasperated.

"Not that I remember," answered Campbell, coolly. "I should have been a
fool to promise so large a sum. I paid your expenses out to California
and three hundred dollars. That, I take it, is pretty liberal pay for
your services for a month."

"I'll have justice if I live!" said Jones, furiously.

He looked so threatening that Orton Campbell thought it might be best to
placate him, even at the expense of a small extra sum. "Don't be a fool,
Jones," he said. "You know very well that your demands are beyond all
reason. I've treated you very liberally already, but I don't mind doing
a little more. I'll go so far as to give you fifty dollars down, and a
further sum of one hundred dollars on my wedding-day if I marry Florence
Douglas, if you'll be content with that."

"I won't be content with it, Orton Campbell," said Jones, indignantly;
"I won't be content with anything less than the full sum you promised
me. You'd better pay me at once, or you may see trouble."

Orton Campbell should have known that it was dangerous to trifle with a
man so thoroughly roused as Jones was, but his love of money and dislike
to part with it overcame every other consideration, and he said, "You've
refused my offer, and I have done with you. You needn't come near m