“Why not? Is it against the rules of the Secret Service?”
“I don’t know,” replied Willie. “I don’t belong to the Secret Service.”
“You don’t? Then what’s all this about your being Mr. Sheridan’s assistant?”
“You’re perfectly free to take anything the gentleman wants to give you,” remarked Sheridan, “but you would not be if you did belong to the Service. No Secret Service man may accept a cent for any service from any one but the government. And as for his being my assistant, Mr. Morgan, it happens this way. This lad was coming along the water-front when I was trailing wool smugglers. I needed to get a message to my office badly, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the men I was trailing. I asked this lad to send a message for me. He never saw me before and I never saw him. But it seems that he was one of those four boys from Pennsylvania that helped to find that German secret wireless station during the war.”
“I remember reading about it. So you were one of those boys, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” said Willie modestly.
“And so he knew the private call of the Secret Service,” went on Sheridan. “When I gave him the number I wanted him to call up, he knew right away that I was a Secret Service man. He delivered my message in fine shape and then came back to help me, because he found the office couldn’t do anything for me. We got the men I was after, and a lot of smuggled wool too. And while we were working on the case, this lad picked up the hint about your cotton here. So I told him he might go with me when I went to look for the cotton.”
“Young man,” said Mr. Morgan, “the Coastwise Steamship Company is really greatly indebted to you, and I wish you would let me give you a little token of our appreciation.”
“I couldn’t do that,” insisted Willie. “I didn’t do it for money.”
“Then what did you do it for?”