“I’ll be frank with you, O’Rorke, because I want you; but, first of all, there’s the letter I had for you.” And he pitched the document across the table.
O’Rorke drew the candle towards him, and perused the paper slowly and carefully..
“Well!” said Ladarelle, when he had finished—“well! what do you say to that?”
“I say two things to it,” said O’Rorke, calmly. “The first is, what am I to do? and the second is, what am I to get for it?”
“What you are to do is this: you are to serve my interests, and help me in every way in your power.”
“Am I to break the law?” burst in O’Rorke.
“No—at least, no very serious breach.”
“Nothing against that old man up there?” And he made a strange and significant gesture, implying violence.
“No, no, nothing of the kind. You don’t think me such a fool as to risk a halter out of mere impatience. I’ll run neither you nor myself into such danger as that. When I said you were to serve me, it was in such ways as a man may help another by zeal, activity, ready-wittedness, and now and then, perhaps, throwing overboard a few scruples, and proving his friendship by straining his conscience.”
“Well, I won’t haggle about that. My conscience is a mighty polite conscience, and never drops in on me without an invitation!”