"What's that?" said Starlight, sharply.
"I didn't speak," said Yess, innocently.
"Let me look at you," said Starlight, taking the candle from the table and holding it above Yesslett's face. "I think I can give you a bit of a job if you are honest. I am always most particular about employing honest people only." Here Starlight winked exquisitely, with the eye that was hidden from Yesslett, at some of the men who had come into the room. "Are you honest?"
Now Yesslett was the soul of fun, he never could resist a joke, and now, although in the very hands of as murderous a gang of fellows as was ever gathered together, the thought of giving Starlight a home thrust was to his mind so exquisitely comic as to be quite irresistible. Looking as innocent as a babe, he gazed straight into Starlight's eyes and said, without a flicker of a smile—
"Honest! I hope so, as such things go. I am poor, so perhaps I haven't the same honesty as you and these other gentlemen have, who have horses and dollars too, but honesty enough to prevent me wanting to steal 'em. Is that honest enough, sir?"
Alec sat perfectly aghast at Yesslett's impudence and temerity; but Starlight only broke out into a peal of his beautiful, irresistible laughter, and turning to Crosby, said—
"That is a nasty jar for such of us as have consciences—you and me, for instance, Crosby." Then turning to Yesslett, he said, "You can earn a supper and a shilling by taking this letter to that house just down below there. If they ask you where you got it, you must say that a man met you on the Dixieville road and gave it you, and paid you for taking it to Lingan's."
"Oh! but he didn't, you know—you gave it me," said Yesslett, looking exceedingly simple.
"Poor but honest!" said Starlight, in a theatrical tone, to the five or six guffawing fellows in the room. "Gentlemen, behold what you, perhaps, were once. A long time ago," added he, in a half whisper. "My boy, these scruples do you credit; but let me point out to you that you will be my paid agent, my representative, and that if there be any slight falsehood about it," here he gave a little sigh, and gently shook his head, "mine alone will be the blame, and I alone will undertake to bear the consequences. One or two extra are of little consequence to me," whispered he to the man who was nearest to him.
"All right," said Yesslett, who began to enjoy playing his part now that he saw how well it was going. "Where is the shilling?"