“We don’t want you to do anything, just now,” Mr. Tenney explained. “Things may turn up in which you can be of assistance, and then we want to count on you, that’s all.” This was a far less lucid explanation than Horace had looked for. Tenney had been so anxious for a confidential talk, and had hinted of such dazzling secrets, that this was a distinct disappointment. “What did you mean by saying that I had the whole game in my hands?” he demanded, not dissembling his annoyance. “Thus far, you haven’t even dealt me any cards!” Mr. Tenney lay back in his chair again, and surveyed Horace over his finger-tips. “There is to be a game, young man, and you’ve been put in a position to play in it when the time comes. But I should be a particularly simple kind of goose to tell you about it beforehand; now, wouldn’t I?” Thus candidly appealed to, Horace could not but admit that his companion’s caution was defensible. “Please yourself,” he said. “I daresay you’re right enough. I’ve got the position, as you say. Perhaps it is through you that it came to me; I’ll concede that, for argument’s sake. You are not a man who expects people to act from gratitude alone. Therefore you don’t count upon my doing things for you in this position, even though you put me there, unless you first convince me that they will also benefit me. That is clear enough, isn’t it? Very well; thus the matter stands. When the occasion arises that you need me, you can tell me what it is, and what I am to get out of it, and then we’ll talk business.” Mr. Tenney had not lifted his eyes for a moment from his companion’s face. Had his own countenance been one on which inner feelings were easily reflected, it would just now have worn an expression of amused contempt. “Well, this much I might as well tell you straight off,” he said. “A part of my notion, if everything goes smoothly, is to have Mrs. Minster put you into the Thessaly Manufacturing Company as her representative and to pay you five thousand dollars a year for it, which might be fixed so as to stand separate from the other work you do for her. Wendover can arrange that with her. And then I am counting now on declaring myself up at the Minster works, and putting in my time up there; so that your father will be needed again in the store, and it might be so that I could double his salary, and let him have back say a half interest in the business, and put him on his feet. I say these things _might_ be done. I don’t say I’ve settled on them, mind!” “And you still think it best to keep me in the dark; not to tell me what it is I’m to do?” Horace leant forward, and asked this question eagerly. “No-o--I’ll tell you this much. Your business will be to say ditto to whatever me and Wendover say.” A full minute’s pause ensued, during which Mr. Tenney gravely watched Horace sip what remained of his drink. “Well, what shall it be? Do you go in with us?” he asked, at last.