“Then there’s myself,” said O’Rorke, drawing his figure up to his full height, as though the subject was one that entailed no painful modesty. “What about me?”
“I have thought of that already. Put that in your pocket, for the present”—and he pressed a note into his hand—“and when to-morrow comes you shall name your own conditions. Only stand by me to the end—mind that.”
O’Rorke opened the bank-note leisurely, and muttered the word “Twenty;” and certainly nothing in the accent showed enthusiastic gratitude.
“I can give you an order on my banker to-morrow,” said Ladarelle, hurriedly, “but I am rather low in cash here, just now; and I repeat it—your own terms, O’Rorke, your own terms.”
“I suppose so,” was the dry rejoinder.
“It’s not everybody would make you the same proposal.”
“It’s not everybody has so much need of me as you have.”
Ladarelle tried to laugh as he wished him good night, but the attempt was a poor one, and all he could say, as they parted, was:
“Wrexham—the Boar’s Head—the inn on the left hand as you enter the town. I’ll be on the look-out for you myself.”
O’Rorke nodded and withdrew.