"You had better try some champagne."
"No, thank you."
"At least you will take some coffee?"
"Thank you, sir."
The coffee was brought, and at length the dinner was over.
"Thank you, sir," said Oliver, preparing to leave his hospitable entertainer. "You have been very kind. I will bid you good-day."
"No, no, come home with me. I want to have a talk with you."
Oliver reflected that his new acquaintance,who had been so mysteriously kind, might be disposed to furnish him with some employment, and thought it best to accept the invitation, especially as his time was of little value.
Twenty minutes' walk brought them to the door of a fine brown-stone house on a street leading out of Fifth Avenue.
The old gentleman took out a latch-key, opened the front door, and signed to Oliver to follow him upstairs. He paused before a front room on the third floor. Both entered. The room was in part an ordinary bed-chamber, but not wholly. In one corner was a rosewood case containing a number of steel instruments.