“’S like this, Misser Wald’mar. ’S like this. Y-y-yuh see, ’s like this. Fer Gawsake, kill out an ad for me!”
“What? In to-morrow’s paper? Nonsense! You’re too late, even if I wished to do it.”
The visitor stood up and dug both hands into his side pockets. He produced, first a binocular, which, with a snarl, he flung upon the floor. Before it had stopped bumping, there fluttered down upon the seat of his chair a handful of greenbacks. Another followed, and another, and another. The bills toppled and spread, and some of them slid to the floor. Still the man delved.
“There!” he panted at last. “Money talks. There’s the stuff. Count it. Eighteen hundred if there’s a dollar. More likely two thou. If that ain’t enough, make your own price. I don’t care what it is. Make it, Misser. Put a price on it.”
There was something loathsome and obscene in the creature’s gibbering flux of words. The editor leaned forward.
“Bribery, eh?” he inquired softly.
The man flinched from the tone. “It ain’t bribery, is it, to ast you to rout out jus’ one line from an ad an’ pay you for the trouble. My own ad, too. If it runs, it’s my finish. I was nutty when I wrote it. Fer Gawsake, Misser—”
“Stop it! You say Morrison sent you here?”
“No, sir. Not exac’ly. ’S like this, M’ Wald’mar. I hadda get to you some way. It’s important to Misser Morrison, too. But he don’t know I come. He don’t know nothing about it. Oh, Gaw! If he finds out—”
“Put that money back in your pockets.”