“Now, what you do,” said Nevill, “is to go round right off and interview Bishop Jordan.  He has sick people to burn!”

But I said Jones would get on to it if I deluged him with the misery of the slums.

“That’s just where the bishop comes in,” said Nevill.  “There isn’t a man more in touch with the saddest kind of poverty in New York—­the decent, clean, shrinking poverty that hides away from all the deadhead coffee and doughnuts.  If I was in your fix I’d fall over myself to reach Jordan!”

“Yes, you try Jordan,” said Charley, who, I’m sure, had never heard of him before.

“Then it’s me for Jordan,” said I.

I went down stairs and told one of the bell-boys to look up the address in the telephone-book.  It seemed to me he looked pale, that boy.

“Aren’t you well, Dan?” I said.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me, sir.  I guess it must be the night work.”

I gave him a five-dollar bill and made him write down 1892 Eighth Avenue on a piece of paper.

“You go and see Doctor Jones first thing,” I said.  “And don’t mention my name, nor spend the money on Her Mad Marriage.”

I jumped into a hansom with a pleasant sense that I was beginning to make the fur fly.

“That’s a horrible cold of yours, Cabby,” I said as we stopped at the bishop’s door and I handed him up a dollar bill.  “That’s just the kind of a cold that makes graveyards hum!”

“I can’t shake it off, sir,” he said despondently.  “Try what I can, and it’s never no use!”

“There’s one doctor in the world who can cure anything,” I said; “Doctor Henry Jones, 1892 Eighth Avenue.  I was worse than you two weeks ago, and now look at me!  Take this five dollars, and for heaven’s sake, man, put yourself in his hands quick.”

Bishop Jordan was a fine type of modern clergyman.  He was broad-shouldered mentally as well as physically, and he brought to philanthropic work the thoroughness, care, enthusiasm and capacity that would have earned him a fortune in business.

“Bishop,” I said, “I’ve come to see if I can’t make a trade with you!”

He raised his grizzled eyebrows and gave me a very searching look.

“A trade,” he repeated in a holding-back kind of tone, as though wondering what the trap was.

“Here’s a check for one thousand dollars drawn to your order,” I went on.  “And here’s the address of Doctor Henry Jones, 1892 Eighth Avenue.  I want this money to reach him via your sick people, and that without my name being known or at all suspected.”

“May I not ask the meaning of so peculiar a request?”

“He’s hard up,” I said, “and I want to help him.  It occurred to me that I might make you—­er—­a confederate in my little game, you know.”

His eyes twinkled as he slowly folded up my check and put it in his pocket.

“I don’t want any economy about it, Bishop,” I went on.  “I don’t want you to make the best use of it, or anything of that kind.  I want to slap it into Doctor Jones’ till, and slap it in quick”