Surprised, the man looked steadily at Max a moment before replying. “I believe you’re right, boy. You’re a new sort of youngster to me. Go ahead in your own way. Only you must promise me this: if you ever need money, for school or business, come to me. Will you? Will you promise that?”
“If—if I need it pretty badly I’ll come. I’ll come before I have to rob ice boxes.” They both smiled, and the tension was broken.
After some further talk the interview ended, and Max left the office knowing he had won respect instead of merely gratitude. It had been a hard hour; and considering he had “turned down” a hundred dollars a month he thought it strange that he should feel so buoyant.
Whistling gayly as he walked from the car, he opened the door of his home to meet a stranger, a small, quiet-spoken man with an inscrutable face, who rose at once and held out a copy of the morning paper. “Are you the young man mentioned here as Max Ball?”
The paper had published a long, sensational account of the event of the previous day, magnifying Max’s part in it, giving a garbled story of his life in the city, and asserting that he would become the beneficiary of Mr. Buckman.
Max admitted his identity, but denied the closing statement.
Question after question the man asked, questions that seemed apropos of nothing at first; but they slowly, circuitously led to facts in Max’s life that he had intended never to disclose.
It seemed as if he were on trial for a crime he had not committed, and was being proven certainly guilty. As often as possible he took refuge in silence; but the man was able to compel speech, to make him tell all he knew and more besides.
“What is all this for?” Max importuned for the third time, when the man was closing his notebook.