“But papa did not originate nor engineer the transaction,” persisted the girl. “Nor did he actually do more for you than any lawyer would have done, except that he did not charge you anything for investigating the title.”
“Had the deal failed to go through, I should have lost my thousand dollars unless he came to my rescue, which I felt sure he would have done.”
“Now, Dick—I’m going to call you Dick after this,” she said, with a blush, “that is, between ourselves, you know, and I wish you would call me simply Jennie—you mustn’t try to make me think you aren’t smart. I know you are. Papa says so, and whatever papa says I’m accustomed to believe. He says you are bound to succeed. Now, I think you have already succeeded pretty well. You’ve never denied what your friend Mr. Fletcher——”
“You mean Joe?”
“Of course I mean him. What he said about you making eight hundred and fifty dollars in a month out of nothing just after you left that horrid Mr. Maslin. Then there’s that water-cooler patent which hasn’t cost you more than six hundred. Papa says the manufacturer who has taken it in hand told him it would net you several thousands of dollars in the long run. Then it wasn’t a month after you had arranged that matter before you bought the patent rights to a typewriter improvement and sold it in a week to a manufacturer at a profit of nearly a thousand dollars. Oh, dear, no; you’re not smart at all—of course not!”
What answer Dick might have made to the young lady’s enthusiastic commendation of his business abilities was fated to remain unspoken, for at that moment a thrilling episode occurred that attracted their startled attention and in the end led up to a most remarkable climax.
They were walking through Forty-first Street from Broadway to Sixth Avenue to take the elevated train at the Forty-second Street station and had nearly reached the corner when a tall, fine-appearing gentleman turned into the street from Sixth Avenue and approached them.
Almost at the identical moment three figures rushed out of the doorway of the corner building, where they had evidently hidden, and sprang upon the gentleman.
The attack was so sudden and unexpected that the intended victim was thrown to the sidewalk and would have been overpowered but for Dick, who, notwithstanding the fact that he had a young lady to protect, could not stand tamely by and witness such an outrage.
Confident of his own strength and agility, Dick left Miss Nesbitt’s side and started for the struggling group.