will write to Pinkerton," I returned. "I feel sure he can help you to
some employment, and in the meantime, and for three months after your
arrival, he shall pay to yourself personally, on the first and the
fifteenth, twenty-five dollars."

"Mr. Dodd, I scarce believe you can be serious in this offer," he
replied. "Have you forgotten the circumstances of the case? Do you know
these people are the magnates of the section? They were spoken of
to-night in the saloon; their wealth must amount to many millions of
dollars in real estate alone; their house is one of the sights of the
locality, and you offer me a bribe of a few hundred!"

"I offer you no bribe, Mr. Bellairs; I give you alms," I returned. "I
will do nothing to forward you in your hateful business; yet I would not
willingly have you starve."

"Give me a hundred dollars then, and be done with it," he cried.

"I will do what I have said, and neither more nor less," said I.

"Take care," he cried. "You are playing a fool's game; you are making an
enemy for nothing; you will gain nothing by this, I warn you of it!" And
then with one of his changes, "Seventy dollars--only seventy--in mercy,
Mr. Dodd, in common charity. Don't dash the bowl from my lips! You have
a kindly heart. Think of my position, remember my unhappy wife."

"You should have thought of her before," said I. "I have made my offer,
and I wish to sleep."

"Is that your last word, sir? Pray consider; pray weigh both sides: my
misery, your own danger. I warn you--I beseech you; measure it well
before you answer," so he half pleaded, half threatened me, with clasped
hands.

"My first word, and my last," said I.

The change upon the man was shocking. In the storm of anger that now
shook him, the lees of his intoxication rose again to the surface; his
face was deformed, his words insane with fury; his pantomime, excessive
in itself, was distorted by an access of St. Vitus.

"You will perhaps allow me to inform you of my cold opinion," he began,
apparently self-possessed, truly bursting with rage: "when I am a
glorified saint, I shall see you howling for a drop of water, and exult
to see you. That your last word! Take it in your face, you spy, you
false friend, you fat hypocrite! I defy, I defy and despise and spit
upon you! I'm on the trail, his trail or yours; I smell blood, I'll
follow it on my hands and knees, I'll starve to follow it! I'll hunt you
down, hunt you, hunt you down! If I were stro