The stranger leaned forward and said in a low voice, "You remember your manager, the man who left you?"
"Remember him! You do not mean to say he is in the thick of this—the scoundrel, the—the rascal." Then suspicion came to him again.
"What interest in all this have you?" he asked, very angrily, and glaring at the stranger fiercely.
"Interest? you do not suppose I have come to you for nothing; that would be rather a good joke," and he laughed heartily.
"Of course not, of course not. But from what motive? No one does anything for nothing," and Mr. Drayton put on an air of wisdom, in which cunning was very visible.
"I should think not, indeed; and I am not working for nothing, I can tell you. In the first place, a friend of mine has been most abominably treated—shockingly, shamefully treated!"
"By whom?"
"By some one connected with these works," (and I am sure that is true, said Paul Lyons to himself, since he, this man, has been connected with them).
"Can't you tell his name?"
"No, I can't, it would spoil all my plans if I did," (and so it would, he thought).