Although suspicous at once, because of no address but a pine tree, I said nothing, except merely:
“Fifty cents.”
“Suppose we fix it like this,” he suggested. “Fifty cents for the trip and another fifty for going away at once and not hanging around, and fifty more for forgetting me the moment you leave?”
I had until then worn my gogles, but removing them to wipe my face, he stared, and then said:
“And another fifty for not running into anything, including milk wagons.”
I hesatated. To dollars was to dollars, but I have always been honest, and above reproach. But what if he was the Theif, and now about to survey my own home with a view to entering it clandestinely? Was I one to assist him under those circumstanses?
However, at that moment I remembered the Reward. With that amount I could pay everything and start life over again, and even purchace a few things I needed. For I was allready wearing my Trouseau, having been unable to get any plain every-day garments, and thus frequently obliged to change a tire in a crepe de chine petticoat, et cetera.
I yeilded to the temptation. How could I know that I was sewing my own destruction?
IV
Let us, dear reader, pass with brevaty over the next few days. Even to write them is a repugnent task, for having set my hand to the Plow, I am not one to do things half way and then stop.