I felt like a man from whom a great load had been lifted. Not only had I found some one to share the burden I had been staggering under for two weeks and which was daily growing heavier, but it was that one in whom before all others I placed the greatest confidence.
It was Littell who recalled me from my abstraction to the consideration of the serious business we had in hand. Looking at his watch, he said:
"It is four o'clock and I am ready to begin my work. You, Van!" he continued, "cannot be of any assistance just now, but Dick can take me to my client, for I want to talk with him and hear his story."
"Do you wish to go now?" I asked.
"There is no time to be lost and as you know I have no other serious duties to occupy me," he answered.
Van Bult gazed at him with evident appreciation of the sacrifice he was making.
"It is good of you, Littell," he said, "and I fancy the world will think none the less of you for the sacrifice you are making for a poor fellow who is nothing to you."
Littell shook his head impatiently; he was never a man who liked compliments.
"I have undertaken it, and that is all there is to it," he said.
"Well," Van Bult replied, "we won't say anything more about it, but before I leave you, let me offer a suggestion that does not seem to have occurred to Dallas with all his theorizing."