"No. It's too big."
"Oh, but, Mr. Waddington...."
Sigsbee H. Waddington seemed to come out of a trance. He shook himself and stared at the policeman as if he were saying "Where am I?" He heaved a deep, remorseful sigh.
"Isn't money the devil!" he said. "Isn't it terrible the way it saps all a fellow's principles and good resolutions! Sheer greed, that was what was the matter with me, when I said I wouldn't let you have this stock. Sheer, grasping greed. Here am I, with millions in the bank, and the first thing you know I'm trying to resist a generous impulse to do a fellow human-being, whose face I like, a kindly act. It's horrible!" He wrenched the bundle from his pocket and threw it to the policeman. "Here, take it before I weaken again. Give me the three hundred quick and let me get away."
"I don't know how to thank you, sir."
"Don't thank me, don't thank me. One—two—three," said Mr. Waddington, counting the bills. "Don't thank me at all. It's a pleasure."
3
Upstairs, while the conversation just recorded was in progress, Frederick Mullett was entertaining his fiancée, Fanny Welch, to a light collation in the kitchen of George Finch's apartment. It is difficult for a man to look devotional while his mouth is full of cold beef and chutney,—but not impossible, for Mullett was doing it now. He gazed at Fanny very much as George Finch had gazed at Molly Waddington, Hamilton Beamish at Madame Eulalie, and as a million other young men in New York and its outskirts were or would shortly be gazing at a million other young women. Love had come rather late to Frederick Mullett, for his had been a busy life, but it had come to stay.
Externally, Fanny Welch appeared not unworthy of his devotion. She was a pretty little thing with snapping black eyes and a small face. The thing you noticed about her first was the slim shapeliness of her hands with their long, sensitive fingers. One of the great advantages of being a pickpocket is that you do have nice hands.
"I like this place," said Fanny, looking about her.