CHAPTER II.
AN AMAZING OFFER.
Lawrence dropped his paper, and flashed a startled, bewildered glance at the man beside him. For a moment he was silent, unable to credit his senses.
"What did you say?" he gasped at length.
"I asked if you would care to earn a thousand dollars," the stranger repeated, in a quiet, precise voice.
Lawrence stared for a second longer, and then suddenly burst into a harsh, mirthless laugh. For an instant he had been thrilled to the very core. A thousand dollars! Good Lord!
In that fleeting space there flashed through his brain a dozen pictures—clear, vivid, and distinct. He saw restaurants such as he used to patronize, with food—real food, and not the gross, coarse stuff one ate simply to fill that gnawing, aching void. He saw theaters, with their glittering lights and stirring music. He saw his old rooms, cheery and homelike in the lamplight and the red glow of the grate fire. He saw an overcoat, well cut, and lined with thick, warm fur, into which he might snuggle and defy the bitter blasts which had sapped his vitality and tortured him almost beyond endurance. He saw everything that a thousand dollars would bring to him.
And then he came to earth with a thud. Of course, the man was mad!
"I can understand that this may seem a little odd to you," the stranger went on, in that same dry, unemotional tone, "but the circumstances themselves are somewhat out of the ordinary. I had hoped that you might consider the matter favorably."
Something in the other's calm, sedate, business-like manner made Lawrence eye him again keenly. There was nothing in the least savoring of insanity about the stranger. His whole personality fairly exuded respectability. His pale eyes were quiet and steady—the eyes of a man who might be utterly unemotional and lacking imagination, but scarcely the eyes of a maniac.