The tone in which this communication was made left no doubt of the speaker’s sincerity. His mean face grew positively wolfish as he spoke. Not even in his days aboard the _Illinois_, when he had joined Kennell, the ship’s bully of the _Manhattan_, and the other miscreants in abducting Ned and Mr. Varian, had Hank Harkins ever looked more despicable. For his part in the conspiracy, as our former readers know, Harkins, who hailed from the same village as the Dreadnought Boys, had been dishonorably discharged from the service. That the world had not gone well with him since then was manifest. His clothes were old and worn, and lines, which did not look well on a youthful countenance, marked his features. As Charbonde gazed at the figure before him, a sudden thought came to him. Here, ready-made to his hand, was a tool that he might find useful. “So you would like to have an opportunity to avenge yourself on those two lads, is it not so?” he said slowly. “I’d do almost anything to get even with them,” muttered Hank. “They are the cause of all my misfortunes. I’ve been broke for weeks, and have hardly known what it was to have a square meal.” Hank did not think it necessary to add that his misfortunes, like his dishonorable discharge, were all of his own making. His father, sorely tried though he had been by the boy’s unsavory escapades, had written him to come home to the farm, but this Hank had refused to do permanently. Life in and about New York suited his vagabond disposition too well for that. “Ah, you need money,” exclaimed Senor Charbonde. “Yes, yes,” ejaculated Hank in a voice that came dangerously near to being a beggar’s whine. But if he thought Senor Charbonde was going to be so prodigal with his funds as to hand him a crisp bill, he was mistaken. Instead, the South American revolutionary agent tore a sheet out of a notebook he fished from his pocket and handed it to Hank, who gazed at it eagerly. It bore an address on West Fourteenth Street, New York,--that of a hotel famous as a rendezvous for foreign secret agents. “Be there at three o’clock this afternoon, and perhaps I can put you in the way of making a little money.” With these words Senor Charbonde swung on his carefully polished boot heel, and, twirling his stick gayly, started at his best pace to leave behind what was, to his fastidious taste, a very unsavory portion of the town. Hank, however, after a moment’s interval, had appraised the other’s prosperous appearance and pattered rapidly after him on his thin-worn shoe soles. “Suppose you give me a little in advance?” he asked impudently. The South American hesitated.