"Momento!" interrupted the other, holding up his hand. "Now suppose things to be as they are, and you learn that the custodi are on my track"—
"They've heard something of the find," interposed Jerry; "they told me that."
"There! You see!" Wrenmarsh said, with a gesture which seemed to appeal to all humanity to bear witness that in whatever he had said he had been completely right. "Suppose, now, that you have—with perfect security to yourself, mind—a chance to give me a friendly word of warning, and don't do it. What then?"
"Why," Tab answered, feeling every moment more and more as if he were being snarled up in a web, "it would be, in such a case as you suppose, a pretty shabby trick, of course. At the same time"—
"Wait a bit," cried Mr. Wrenmarsh, again interrupting him, and growing visibly more excited still; "wait a bit. I want you to consider the present case. You say yourself the secret is leaking out, and of course every moment makes my danger greater. With practically no bother and with absolute safety you can help me out of the whole tangle. If you don't, I shall be caught; I shall lose this incomparable treasure and all the money I paid for it,—and that's no small sum, let me tell you,—and all because you, my forlorn hope that I've confided in in rebus angustis, won't devote twenty-four hours of your time to saving your own self-respect. By Jove!" he cried, starting to his feet, "if you don't help me you betray me as much as if you went straight to the custodi with my story."
"Sit tight!" cried Jerry, startled by the violence of the other's demonstration. "Sit tight!"
"Will you help me?" demanded Mr. Wrenmarsh, his brown eyes blazing. "Will you help—help me to dodge these Italian robbers and get my things—my antiquities that I have paid for with hard cash—out of this rotten country? Will you help, or will you desert me, and take sides with those that are waiting to rob me?"
"By George, I've a mind to try!" incautiously ejaculated Jerry, for the moment carried off his balance by the enthusiasm and the persuasive personality of the other.
"Good man!" cried the antiquarian in a rapture; "good man! I knew you would. We'll beat 'em! I"—
"Hold your horses a bit!" put in Tab hastily, taken aback by the force Wrenmarsh gave to his unconsidered words. "Go slow, please. I may have"—