"Would I have brought you here if I hadn't known it was the safest place in New York for this kind of talk? Why, man, there may be in this city five men all told, who know the trick of the door I unfastened for you, and not one of them is a cop. You may take my word for that. Besides----" "But the kids? They're everywhere; and if one of them should have followed us----" "Do you know what would happen to him? I'll tell you a story--no, I won't; you're frightened enough already. But there's no kid here, nor any one else but our two selves, unless it be some wandering spook from the congregations laid outside; and spooks don't count. So out with your proposition, Mr. Fellows. I----" CHAPTER II "_Thousands in that safe_" "No names!" hoarsely interrupted the other. "If you speak my name again I'll give the whole thing up." "No you won't; you're too deep in it for that. But I'll drop the Fellows and just call you Sam. If that's too familiar, we'll drop the job. I'm not so keen on it." "You will be. It's right in your line." Sam Fellows, as he was called, was whispering now--a hot, eager whisper, breathing of guilt and desperation. "If I could do it alone--but I haven't the wit--the----" "Experience," dryly put in the other. "Well, well!" he exclaimed impatiently, as Fellows crept nearer, but said nothing. "I'm going to speak, but--Well, then, here's how it is!" he suddenly conceded, warned by the other's eye. "The building is a twenty-story one, chuck full and alive with business. The room I mean is on the twelfth floor; it is one of five, all communicating, and all in constant use except the one holding the safe. And that is visited constantly. Some one is always going in and out. Indeed, it is a rule of the firm that every one of the employees must go into that room once, at least, during the day, and remain there for five minutes alone. I do it; every one does it; it's a very mysterious proceeding which only a crank like my employer would devise." "What do you do there?" "Nothing. I'm speaking now for myself. The others--some of the others--_one_ of the others may open the safe. That's what I believe, that's what I want to know about and _how it's done_. There are thousands in that safe, and the old man being away----" "Yes, this is all very interesting. Go on. What you want is an artist with a jimmy." "No, no. It's no such job as that. I want to know the person, the trusted person who has all those securities within touch. It's a mania with me. I should have been the man. I'm--I'm _manager_." The hoarseness with which this word was uttered, the instinct of shame which made his eyes fall as it struggled from his lips, wakened a curious little gleam of hardy cynicism in the steady gaze of his listener.