The Spider immediately counted out the money and handed it to Andover.  “And get him in a room where he can be by himself.  I’ll pay for it.”

“That’s all right, but if he should not recover from the operation—­”

“I’m gambling that he’ll pull through,” said The Spider.  “And there’s my ante.  It’s up to you.”

“I’ll have a receipt made out—­”

The Spider shook his bead.  “His life’ll be my receipt.  And you’re writing it—­don’t make no mistake.”

Andover’s pale face flushed.  “I’m not accustomed to having my reputation as a surgeon questioned.”

“See here,” said The Spider, laying another packet of bills on the surgeon’s desk.  “Where I come from money talks.  And I reckon it ain’t got tongue-tied since I was in El Paso last.  Here’s a thousand.  Pull that boy through and forget where you got the money.”

“I couldn’t do more if you said ten thousand,” asserted Andover.

“Gambling is my business,” said The Spider.  “I raise the ante.  Do you come in?”

“This is not a sporting proposition,”—­Andover hesitated,—­“but I’ll come in,” he added slowly.

“You’re wrong,” said The Spider; “everything is a sporting proposition from the day a man is born till he cashes in, and mebby after.  I don’t know about that, and I didn’t come here to talk.  My money ’ll talk for me.”

Andover, quite humanly, was thinking that a thousand dollars would help considerably toward paying for the new car that he had had in mind for some time.  He used a car in his work and he worked for the General Hospital.  His desire to possess a new car was not altogether professional, and he knew it.  But he also knew that he was overworked and underpaid.

“Who shall I say called?” asked Andover, picking up the packet of bills.

“Just tell him it was a friend.”

Andover was quite as shrewd in his way as was this strange visitor, who evidently did not wish to be known.  “This entire matter is rather irregular,” he said,—­“and the—­er—­bonus—­is necessarily a confidential matter!”

“Which suits me,”—­and The Spider blinked queerly.

Dr. Andover stepped to the main doorway.  As he bade The Spider good-night, he told him to call up on the telephone about ten-thirty the next morning, or to call personally if he preferred.

The Spider hesitated directly beneath the arc-light at the entrance.  “If I don’t call up or show up—­you needn’t say anything about this deal to him—­but you can tell him he’s got a friend on the job.”

The doctor nodded and walked briskly back to the superintendent’s office, where he waited until the secretary appeared, when he turned over the money that had been paid to him for the operation and a private room, which The Spider had engaged for two weeks.  He told the secretary to make out a receipt in Peter Annersley’s name.  “A friend is handling this for him,” he explained.