"Well, I’ll tell you how I’m fixed. You know that Madam Spoll and Vixley have got it in for me—they’ve tried to run me out of this town, in fact." "Oh, _that’s_ why you quit? Lord, I wouldn’t lay down so easy as that!" "Well, I’m out of it, at any rate. I won’t say why, but they tried to hurt me, fast enough. Now I want to give them as good as they sent." Doctor Masterson grinned and clasped his hands over his knees. "That suits me all right, I ain’t any too friendly myself, just at present." "Then perhaps we can come to terms. What I propose to do, is to checkmate them with Payson." Masterson rubbed his red, scrawny beard. "That ain’t easy," he said reflectively. "Easy enough, if you’ll help me." "How?" "Simply by giving the whole business away to Mr. Payson. He’ll believe you when he won’t me." "Well, what is there in it?" "You know what my word is worth. If you help me, and we succeed in getting Mr. Payson out of the net, I promise you a thousand dollars." "H’m!" Masterson deliberated. "Of course, they know I’ll spoil their game if I can, so I take no chances in telling you. So it’s up to you to decide whether you’ll stand in with them, or with me. I can do it alone, in time, but if you help, so much the better. You stand to win, anyway. It isn’t worth that much to work with them, as things are, and you know it." "I don’t know about that," said Masterson craftily, watching his man; "a thousand ain’t much for giving away pals." "They’re not your pals. They’ve tried to freeze you out—Fancy Gray has told me that from the inside. They’re going to get rid of you in short order. Besides, you’ll have the credit of rescuing a credulous old man from the clutches of swindlers." "That’s true," said the doctor. "They’re a-bleeding him something awful. It _had_ ought to be stopped, as you say. I don’t believe in grafting. I’m a straight practitioner, and if any of my patients want fake work they can go somewheres else." "Well, what d’you say, then?" Masterson thought it over as he warmed his hands. His reverie was interrupted by a knock on the door, and he rose to open it. An old, shabby woman stood in the hall. She was wrinkled and veined, with yellowish white hair, vacuous, watery gray eyes, a red, bulbous nose, and a miserable chin. She had nothing of the dignity of age, and her thin, cruel lips were her only signs of character. All other traits were submerged by drink and poverty. Her skirt was ridiculously short and her black shawl ragged and full of holes. She breathed of beer. "How d’you do, Mrs. Riley?" said Masterson. "I’m sorry to say I’m engaged at present and you’ll have to wait. Can’t you sit down on the stairs for a while?" "Oh, dear, but that fire looks good!" she whined. "Can’t I just come in and have a seat to rest my bones on? I’m feeling that miserable this day that I can’t stand."