"Listen to me," began Anton. "You remember our last conversation when we met upon our travels?"
"I remember nothing," said the broker, shaking his head, and anxiously looking at the door.
"You gave me some good advice; and when I tried to hear further, I found you had vanished."
"These are old stories," replied Tinkeles, with growing disquiet. "I can't recall them now. I have something to do in the market; I thought you wanted to speak to me on business."
"It is business about which we are treating, and it may be a profitable business for you," said Anton, significantly. He went to his writing-table, and, taking out a roll of money, laid it on the table before Tinkeles. "This hundred dollars belongs to you if you give me the information I want."
Tinkeles slyly glanced at the roll and replied, "A hundred dollars are all very well, but I can't give you any information. I know nothing; I can not remember. Whenever I see you," he irritably went on, "bad luck follows; whenever I have had any thing to do with you, it has brought me trouble and vexation."
Anton silently went to his desk and laid another roll of money by the first. "Two hundred dollars! They are yours if you give me the information I need," said he, drawing a square around them with a piece of white chalk.
The Galician's eyes fastened greedily upon the square, to which Anton kept silently pointing. Tinkeles at first pretended indifference, but his eyes grew gradually keener, his gestures more restless. He shrugged his shoulders, raised his eyebrows, and tried hard to shake off the spell that bound him. At length he could bear it no longer; he reached out his hands for the money.
"Speak first," said Anton, placing his own hand on it.
"Do not be too severe with me," implored Tinkeles.