arked Tavender, vaguely.

"Well--my point is that perhaps I can do something or other with this
concession of yours here. I may even be able to get my money back on it.
At any rate I'll take my chances on it--so that at least you shan't lose
anything by it. Of course, if you'd rather try and put it on the market
yourself, why go ahead!" There was a wistful pathos in the way Tavender
shook his head. "Big money doesn't mean anything to me any more," he
said, wearily. "I'm too old and I'm too tired. Why--four--five--yes,
half a dozen times I've had enough money to last me comfortably all my
life--and every time I've used it as bait to catch bigger money with,
and lost it all. I don't do that any more! I've got something the matter
with me internally that takes the nerve all out of me. The doctors don't
agree about it, but whatever its name is I've got it for keeps. Probably
I shan't live very long"--Thorpe recalled that the old man had always
taken a gloomy view of his health after the third glass--"and if you
want to pay me the nineteen thousand dollars, or whatever it is, why I
shall say 'God bless you,' and be more than contented."

"Oh, there's something more to it than that," observed Thorpe, with an
added element of business-like briskness in his tone. "If I let you out
in this way--something, of course, you could never have dreamed would
happen--you must do some things for me. I should want you, for example,
to go back to Mexico at once. Of course, I'd pay your expenses out. Or
say, I'd give you a round four thousand pounds to cover that and some
other things too. You wouldn't object to that, would you?"

The man who, two hours before, had confronted existence with the change
of his last five-pound note in his pocket, did not hesitate now. "Oh
no, that would be all right," with reviving animation, he declared. He
helped himself again from the cut-glass decanter. "What would you want
me to do there?"

"Oh, a report on the concession for a starter," Thorpe answered,
with careful indifference. "I suppose they still know your name as an
authority. I could make that all right anyway. But one thing I ought
to speak of--it might be rather important--I wouldn't like to have you
mention to anybody that the concession has at any time been yours. That
might tend to weaken the value of your report, don't you see? Let it be
supposed that the concession has been my property from the start. You
catch my point, don't you? There