Now this was not the first time Frank Mansfield had had this proposition made to him by Detective Cutts, nor the second nor the third.
He had been introduced to this individual about a month before, by two of his fast companions, the Jim Morrow and Ed Wilson the detective had just named, and in their presence this strange request had been first made, to be renewed upon several occasions since.
At first the proposal had been rejected outright.
Frank had positively refused to have anything to do with it at all.
But, upon its repetition, the boy had been more inclined to lend a willing ear.
He was more inclined than ever to do so upon this night.
To be sure, he did not more than half believe the detective's statement as to the reason of his singular request; but, after all, he was a member of the police force, an officer of the law, although little older than Frank himself.
Detectives were obliged, as he knew well enough, to attain their ends by all sorts of singular means. Surely, in these days of defaulting cashiers and pilfering tellers, there could be no serious harm in letting a police detective copy a signature from the bank's books.
Nor was the promised reward without its full weight in the mind of the boy.
"Come to me with proof that you are possessed of at least ten thousand dollars, and I will listen to you, and not before," the father of the girl he so devotedly loved had said.