"Hush! not so loud, or you'll have the rest of the house down on us," Sam Pepper leaned forward and whispered something into the young man's ear. "There, how do you like that?"
Homer Bulson fell back as if shot.
"You—you speak the truth?" he faltered.
"I do."
"But after all these years! Impossible!"
"It's true, I tell you, and I can prove it—if I want to. But I'm not his friend. Now are you willing to make a deal with me?"
"Yes! yes!" groaned the young man. "First, however, you must prove your words. But that can't be done here. Come to my bachelor apartment, across the way. There we will be perfectly safe."
"All right. But I must have some of that gold first."
"Well, you shall have some—as much as I took, but no more," concluded Homer Bulson, and opened the secret compartment again.