"It's that or the revolver," said Tinker sweetly.
The financier clutched at his hair and raved: fear and avarice,
conflicting, tore at his vitals. He owed his millions to no genuine
force of character, but to luck, industry, and dishonesty. In this
great crisis of his life he was helpless. Tinker, trained from
babyhood by his wise father to study his fellow creatures, understood
something of this, and began to goad him to the effort.
"It's a lot of money to lose," said he thoughtfully.
"The sweat of my brow! The sweat of my brow!" groaned the financier,
who had really made it by the nimbleness of his tongue.
"And it seems a pity to blow your brains out, which hurts a good deal,
before you've tried every chance," said Tinker.
The financier groaned.
"At any rate, if we did come a cropper, you'd be no worse off."
"Ah!" cried the financier, stopping short. "Why shouldn't I wake Herr
Schlugst, and get him to take me?"
"Because he won't," said Tinker quietly. "He told me that nothing
would induce him to try a flight in the night. He's all right in the
daytime, but the darkness funks him. Foreigners are like that; they'll
go to a certain point all right, but there they stop. That's what I've
noticed.
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