one you are sitting in.  Once or twice a week I go up and sit in his chair and talk.  In all the years I have known him I have only seen him troubled once or twice.  Then I asked him the reason, and he told me.  To-day I heard you speak about some money you wanted, and then I saw that something had gone wrong.  After I left he came downstairs and passed my window and did not look in.  I watched him go up the street, he walked very slow, and his head was down on his chest.  I did not like it.  A little while ago he came back; I went out to meet him.  I said, ‘Mr. Grayson, what troubles you?’ And he said—­’Nothing, Isaac, thank you,’ and went upstairs.  That is the first time in all the years I know him that he answered me like that.  So now I ask you once more—­how much money do you want, and what do you want it for?  When I know this, then I will know what troubles Mr. Grayson.  There is always a woman or a sum of money at the bottom of every complication.  Mr. Grayson never worries over either.  I do not believe you do, but I have had many surprises in my life.”

Jack had heard him through without interruption.  Most of it—­ especially Cohen’s affection for Peter—­he had known before.  It was the last statement that roused him.

“Well, if you must know, Mr. Cohen—­it is not for myself, but for a friend.”

The Jew smiled.  He saw that the young man had told the truth.  Peter’s confidence in the boy, then, need not be shaken.

“And how much money do you need for your friend?” His eyes were still reading Jack.

“Well, a very large sum.”  Jack did not like the cross-examination, but somehow he could not resent it.

“But, my dear young man, will you not tell me?  If you buy a coat, do you not want to know the price?  If you pay for an indiscretion, is not the sum named in the settlement?”

“Ten thousand dollars.”

There was no change in the Jew’s face.  The smile did not alter.

“And this is the money that Mr. Grayson tried to borrow for you, and failed?  Is it not so?”

Jack nodded.

“And you have tried everywhere to get it yourself?  All the afternoon you have been at it?” Still the same queer smile—­one of confirmation, as if he had known it all the time.

Again Jack nodded.  Isaac was either a mind reader or he must have been listening at the keyhole when he poured out his heart to Peter.

“Yes, that is what I thought when I saw you come in a little while ago, dragging your feet as if they were lead, and your eyes on the ground.  The step and the eye, Mr. Breen, if you did but know it, make a very good commercial agency.  When the eye is bright and the walk is quick, your customer has the money to pay either in his pocket or in his bank; when the step is dull and sluggish, you take a risk; when the eye looks about with an anxious glance and the step is stealthy, and then when you take the measure for the coat, both go out dancing, you may never get a penny.  But that is only to tell you how I know,” the tailor chuckled softly.  “And now one thing more”—­he was serious now—­“when must you have this ten thousand dollars?”