"The gentleman said
it was most important. I was to find you anywhere, anyhow, and get an
answer of some sort."
"How much," Mr. Phineas Duge asked, "were you to receive if you took
back an answer?"
"The gentleman promised me a dollar, sir," the boy answered.
Mr. Duge put his hand into his pocket.
"Here are two dollars," he said. "Go away at once. There is no answer.
There will not be one. You can tell Mr. Hamilton that I said so."
The boy departed. Her uncle looked across at Virginia and smiled.
"That is how we have to buy immunity from small annoyances here," he
said. "All the time it is the same thing--dollars, dollars, dollars!
That messenger boy was clever to get in. When we leave this restaurant,
you will find that there are at least half a dozen people waiting to
speak to me. It will be telephoned to several places in the city that I
am dining here to-night. From where I am sitting, I can see two
reporters standing by the entrance. They are waiting for me."
She looked at him with interested eyes.
"But why?" she asked timidly.
"Oh! it is simply a matter," he said, "of the money-markets. I have been
doing some things during the last few days which people don't quite
understand.
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