Mr. Herbert smilingly took the chair offered him.
"Mr. McAllister?" he inquired affably.
"Ye-es," replied the clubman. "I noticed your advertisement in the Herald, and it occurred to me that I might like to look into it."
Mr. Herbert smiled slightly in a deprecating manner.
"I admit my method savors a trifle of charlatanism," he remarked, "but the situation was unusual and time was of the essence. Are we quite alone?"
"Oh, yes, certainly! Will you smoke?"
Mr. Herbert had no objection to joining McAllister in a cigar.
"The gist of the matter is this," he explained, holding the weed in the corner of his mouth as he spoke—a trick McAllister had never acquired. "I have a brother who is employed in a confidential capacity by the president of a large mining company—The Golden Touch. The stock has always sold at around four or five. Recently they struck a very rich lode. It was kept very quiet, and only the officers of the company actually on the field know of it. Needless to say, they are buying in the stock as fast as they can."
"Of course," answered McAllister sympathetically. He felt as if he had run across an old friend again. Things were looking up a bit.
"Well, I have located a block of which they know absolutely nothing. It was issued to an engineer in lieu of cash for services at the mine. He suddenly developed sciatica, and is obliged to go to Baden-Baden. At present he is laid up at one of the hotels in this city. Of course he is ignorant of the find made since he left Arizona, and of the fact that his stock, once worth only five dollars a share, is now selling at twenty."