“Will you lend them to me?”
“Certainly. If you find one that suits, you can have it.”
Benton took them, well pleased. From the size it seemed to him probable that one of them would fit the chest.
“Thank you,” he said. “I will return them to you to-morrow.”
“Oh, don’t be in any hurry. They are of no use to me.”
He left the hotel, and it chanced soon afterward that Grant and Tom entered it. Tom was in search of a cigar, for he was a confirmed smoker.
“I just had a call from one of your fellow boarders,” remarked the clerk, who knew both Tom and Grant.
“Benton?”
“Oh, is that his name? I only knew that he boarded at Paul Crambo’s. Seems a sociable sort of fellow.”
“Quite so,” answered Tom dryly.