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Page 52
"Michael Monahan, madam." This was the first alliterative combination
to pop into his optimistic mind.
"Can that," retorted the lady serenely--"solder it up tight, along
with the business of pretending to be a cop. It won't get you
anything. I've a proposition to make to you."
"But, madam," he declared with his na�f and disarming grin--"believe
me--my young affections are already engaged."
"You're not half the imbecile you make yourself out," she judged
soberly. "Come--what's your name?"
Taking thought, he saw no great danger in being truthful for once.
"P., unfortunately, Sybarite," he said: "bookkeeper for Whigham and
Wimper--leather merchants, Frankfort Street."
"And how did you come by that coat and hat?"
"Borrowed it from a drunken cop in Penfield's, a little while ago.
They were raiding the place and I kind of wanted to get away. Strange
to say, my disguise didn't take, and I had to leave by way of the back
fences in order to continue uninterrupted enjoyment of the inalienable
rights of every American citizen--life, liberty, the pursuit of
happiness."
"I don't know why I believe you," said Mrs. Inche reflectively, when
he paused for breath. "Perhaps it's your spendthrift way with
language. Do you talk like that when sober?"
"Judge for yourself."
"All right," she laughed indulgently: "I believe everything you say.
Now what'll you take to do me a service?"
"My services, madam, are yours to command: my reward--ah--your smile."
"Bunk," observed the lady elegantly. "How would a hundred look to you?
Good, eh?"
"You misjudge me," the little man insisted. "Money is really no
object."
"Still"--she frowned in puzzlement--"I should think a clerk in the
leather business--!"
"I'm afraid I've misled you. I should have said that I _was_ a clerk
in the leather business until to-day. Now I happen to be independently
wealthy, a clerk no longer."
"How's that--wealthy?"
"Came into a small fortune this evening--nothing immodest, but ample
for one of my simple tastes and modest ambitions."
"I think," announced the lady thoughtfully, "that you are one of the
slickest young liars I ever listened to."
"That must be considerable eminence," considered P. Sybarite with
humility.
"On the other hand, you're unquestionably a perfect little gentleman,"
she pursued. "And anyhow I'm going to take you at your word and trust
you. If you ever change your mind about that hundred, all you've got
to do is to come back and speak for it.... Do I make you right? You're
willing to go a bit out of your way to do me a favour to-night?"
"Or any other night."
"Very well." Mrs. Inche rose. "Wait here a moment."
Wrapping her negligee round her, she swept magnificently out of the
"den," and a moment later again crossed P. Sybarite's range of vision
as she ascended the stairs. Then she disappeared, and there was
silence in the house: a breathing spell which the little man strove to
employ to the best advantage by endeavouring to assort and rearrange
his sadly disordered impressions.
Aware that he would probably do wisely to rise and flee the place, he
none the less lingered, vastly intrigued and more than half inclined
to see the affair through to the end.
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