"That's good. I know if you give your word you'll keep it. Now, I've got a plan in my head to square accounts, so to speak, and git rich at the same time."
"What plan?"
"Well, you see, it's like this: There's a rich gent lives up near Central Park. I won't give you his name, but I don't mind telling you that he's a distant relative of the fellow who shot your father, and he used to help that other man in his dealings against your father. I don't know as he remembers your father now, but he's a man you ought to get square on, anyway."
"How?"
"I'm coming to that, my boy. This man is old and feeble and has something of an office in his library at home. There is a safe in the library, but it's old-fashioned and can easily be opened. In that safe the old man keeps thousands of dollars all the time, for it's too much for him to go back and forth to the bank, and he aint the one to trust anybody else."
Sam Pepper paused suggestively and looked Nelson full in the eyes. Then he began to whistle softly to himself.
"Do you mean that you think I ought to rob that safe?" questioned our hero.
"You won't have to do the job alone, lad; I'll be on hand to help you."
"But I—I never stole anything in my life."