“From Amos Kidder, of the Evening Planet,” he told Gourley, and read aloud:
Dear George,—The bearer, Mr. James B. Robison, of Paris, France, a friend of Smiley, our correspondent there, asked me to recommend some highly intelligent stock-brokers. I, of course, at once thought of you. Deal with him as you do with
Yours,
Amos F. Kidder.
“Maybe it's a set of those French books that are awful until you've signed the contract and Volume I. comes, and they are not awful at all. Those fellows,” said the cashier, indignantly, “will do anything to get your money.”
“You forget I've got his,” suggested Richards.
“That's a new one on me, I admit,” said the cashier; “but I'll bet a ten-spot—”
“I'll have no gambling in this office! Send in Mr. Robison; and if Kidder should happen in, tell him I'd like to see him.”
The waxed-mustached man, preceded by Otto, the moon-faced clerk, entered the private office of Mr. George B. Richards, who rose and smiled pleasantly even as his keen eyes quickly inventoried Mr. Robison.
“Mr. Richards?” twanged the stranger. That Yankee voice issuing from between those unmistakably French mustaches made Richards start; and yet the vague atmosphere of disquietude and suspicion that the ten letters of introduction had created seemed to be dispelled by the man's Yankee twang. It was so genuinely down-east that it humanized Mr. Robison and made his eccentricity less eccentric. Also, the eyes gleamed not with the fire of insanity, but with a great earnestness.