He went on to tell Mr. Pryor that he was willing to try him out and that faithful service would meet with very big rewards and with increasingly confidential commissions. For the present, his newspaper duties were to be subordinated to the one task of keeping track of the Lorillard tenements.
"Trust me," said Mark Pryor.
He did not think it necessary to explain that keeping track of the Lorillard tenements was precisely what he had been doing for purposes of his own.
"And glue an eye on that fellow Fontaine," added Burley.
"To get a line on the diamond smuggling?" asked Pryor, with the most casual air imaginable.
Burley straightened up with a yell of suspicion.
"What in blazes are you talking about?" he said.
"Merely what you yourself talked about, my dear sir," said Pryor soothingly. "At the ball you called Mr. Fontaine a diamond smuggler. More than one person will remember that remark."
Burley's suspicions were disarmed.
"Forget it, my friend, forget it," he said. "A man says a good many things under the influence of liquor that he has no call to say. I don't suppose the Fontaines are less on the square about their importations than the other big jewelers are. That's no business of mine or yours, however, is it?"