A smile flickered over his drawn face. “I’m not mad—yet. Say, sir, I’ve been

watching you, and I reckon you’re a cool customer. I reckon, too, you’re an

honest man, and not afraid of playing a bold hand. I’m going to confide in you.

I need help worse than any man ever needed it, and I want to know if I can count

you in.”

 

“Get on with your yarn,” I said, “and I’ll tell you.”

 

He seemed to brace himself for a great effort, and then started on the queerest

rigmarole. I didn’t get hold of it at first, and I had to stop and ask him

questions. But here is the gist of it:

 

He was an American, from Kentucky, and after college, being pretty well off, he

had started out to see the world. He wrote a bit, and acted as war correspondent

for a Chicago paper, and spent a year or two in South-Eastern Europe. I gathered

that he was a fine linguist, and had got to know pretty well the society in

those parts. He spoke familiarly of many names that I remembered to have seen in

the newspapers.

 

He had played about with politics, he told me, at first for the interest of

them, and then because he couldn’t help himself. I read him as a sharp, restless

fellow, who always wanted to get down to the roots of things. He got a little

further down than he wanted.