Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/95

Rh "And what d' you expect to get out of it?" I inquired. My iciness didn't seem to affect him.

"I expect your help in return," he told me. I looked him over, from top to toe.

"Say, what's your game, anyway?" I demanded. I think he even chuckled a little.

"It's a most unusual game, I'll acknowledge," was his retort. "And it offers you a chance for a most unusual reward."

"In this world, or the next?" I inquired. "The one we still occupy is the only one we need take into our active consideration," he retorted, with a touch of tartness.

"And what shape will the reward take?" I pursued, still trying to size him up. I noticed, as he took off his hat in his excited solemnity, that a fringe of silvery hair ringed his bald little head, giving him the disturbing and altogether incongruous effect of wearing a halo. At first sight it made him look saintly. But at a second glance it seemed simply to make him foolish, for there was little of the stained-glass-window effect about the face of that old fox with the scheming eyes. His thin lips, puckered close to his teeth as though he were forever holding pins in his mouth, even had a touch of cruelty about them.