“Now, Professor,’ I said, `this dope’s got to be straight stuff, I’m risking money on it; every word you write has got to be the truth, and every line and figure that you put on your map has got to be correct with a capital K.’”

“‘Surely,’ he said, `I shall follow Huxley for the text and I shall check the chart calculations for error.’

“’And there’s another thing, professor.  You’ve got to go dumb on this job, for which I double the twenty.’  He looked puzzled, but when he finally understood me, he said `Surely’ again, and I went back to my apartment.

“‘Charlie,’ I said, `how much money would it take for this English country life business?’

“His eyes lighted up a little.

“‘Well, Barclay, old man,’ he replied, `I’ve estimated it pretty carefully a number of times.  I could take Eldon’s place for six months with the right to purchase for two thousand dollars paid down; and I could manage the servants and the living expenses for another four thousand.  I fear I should not be able to get on with a less sum than six thousand dollars.’

“Then he added — he was a child to the last — ’perhaps Mr. Hardman will now be able to advance it; he promised me “a further per cent” those were his words, when the matter was finally concluded.’

“Then ten thousand would do?”

“My word,’ he said, `I should go it like a lord on ten thousand.  Do you think Mr. Hardman would consider that sum?’

“`I’m going to try him,’ I said, `I’ve got some influence in a quarter that he depends on.’

“And I went out.  I went down to my bank and got twenty U. S. bonds of a thousand each.  At five o’clock, the professor had his dope ready — the text and the chart, neatly folded in a big manilla envelope with a rubber band around it.  And that evening I went up to see old Nute.”

Barclay got another cigarette.  There was a queer cynicism in his big pitted face.

“The church bunch,” he said, “have got a strange conception of the devil; they think he’s always ready to lie down on his friends.  That’s a fool notion.  The devil couldn’t do business if he didn’t come across when you needed him.

“And there’s another thing; the old-timers, when they went after their god for a favor, always began by reciting what they’d done for him . . . .  That was sound dope!  I tried it myself on the way up to old Nute’s apartment on Fifth Avenue.

“I went over a lot of things.  And whenever I made a point, I rapped it on the pavement with the ferule of my walking stick; as one would say, `you owe me for that!’

“You see I was worked up about Tavor.  When a man’s carried a dream over all the hell he’d pushed through he ought to have it in the end.”

Barclay paused and flicked the ashes from his cigarette.

“You know the swell apartments on Fifth Avenue; no name, only a number; every floor a residence, only the elevators connecting them.  I found old Nute in the seventh; and I was bucked the moment I got in.