“So am I.”
“He loves money.”
“A little too well, I admit.”
“If he should accept this offer?”
“But he won’t.”
“If he should;” persisted the Chief.
“If such a thing were possible,—if, without a friendly consultation, and a fair and square send off, he should take up the cudgel against me, then—”
“Then, Dick?”
Richard Stanhope’s eyes flashed, and his mouth set itself in firm lines.
“Then,” he said, “I would measure my strength against his as a detective; but always as a friend, and never to his injury!”