"Feeling better, Aaron?" Harvey Grimm enquired of his friend, about an hour and a half later.
Aaron Rodd was both feeling and looking better and acknowledged the fact. His manner towards his host, too, showed signs of a subtle change. The latter was obviously persona grata in the restaurant. Their table, although a little retired, was in a coveted corner, and attentions of every sort had been respectfully offered them. Nevertheless, his guest felt some sense of relief when he saw the bill signed with a little flourish and accepted with a low bow by their waiter. Harvey Grimm leaned back in his chair and removed the cigar for a moment from his lips.
"You've no faith in me, Aaron," he declared, with an encouraging smile. "That's what you always lacked, even in the old days—faith. You're losing touch with the world, you know, cooped up in that musty office of yours. You don't expect anything to happen to you so long as you grub away there, do you?"
"Nothing has happened, at any rate," Aaron Rodd admitted.
"I will not say that it is your fault," his companion continued tolerantly. "You are by nature of a meditative and retiring temperament. It is a piece of extraordinarily good fortune for you that I never forget old friends."
"Have you anything to propose to me?" Aaron Rodd asked bluntly.
His host leaned across the table.
"Always so downright, my dear Aaron," he murmured, "so material! However, you have asked the question and here is my answer. I am proposing to remain in London for some little time. There are various schemes which have suggested themselves to me, which might readily lead to an enlargement of my income. For their prosecution, my dear Aaron, I need one, only one companion whom I can trust, one man who is out for the big things. That is why I come to you. I offer you a partnership in the concern—Harvey Grimm and Rodd, Traffickers in Fate, Dealers in Adventures. How your hand shakes, man! There, you've dropped the ash from your cigar!"
Aaron Rodd's thin lips were quivering. His eyes seemed full of unutterable things.
"I have made such a fight of it," he muttered. "You've got me, though, Harvey. I've eaten my last crust. I should have had to sell my office stool for a meal to-morrow."