The Argosy — page 97: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Edina. 85 Frank took the case from the Tiger, and thanked him. Even to this man, suspecting him, as he did, for a despicable spy, he could but be courteous. And indeed, but for the suspicion, Frank would have rather liked the man's face, now he saw it closely; the thought passed through his mind that, for a Tiger, he was a civilized one. There was a. tone of pleasant freedom in the voice; the dark grey eyes, gazing steadily into Frank’s, were earnest and stcady. “You come from Trennach,” said Frank suddenly, speaking upon impulse. “From Trennach?” repeated the stranger, vaguely, and evincing No surprise. “Or from some one there,” continued Frank. “Employed by him to—to look after his villainous interests here.” “I am my own employer, young man.” “What is your name, pray ?” “If I thought it concerned you to know it, I might perhaps inform you,” was the answer, civilly delivered. “But suppose it does concern me?” “*Tis my opinion it does not.” ‘ At any rate your business here does.” “ Does it?” “Will you deny that you have business here? Business of a private nature ?” “IT cannot deny that; for it is true.” “And that your business consists in peeping, and watching, and spying ?” “You are partly right.” “And,” continued Frank, growing warm, “don’t you think that to peep and to spy is a despicable proceeding ?” “In some cases it may undoubtedly be so regarded,” was the calm, cool answer. “In other cases it is perfectly justifiable. When some end, for instance, has to be obtained.: or, let us say, a problem worked out!” “The Devil can quote Scripture, we are told, to serve his own pur- poses,” muttered Frank to himself as he turned away: afraid of pursuing the subject; half afraid of what revelation the man might make, and of his fearless grey eyes and their steadfast gaze. They strode apart from one another at right angles. The stranger with careless, easy steps, with profound composure ; Frank less easy than usual. “I wonder,” soliloquised he, “whether Pellet has let him into that unhappy night’s secrets, or whether he has but given him general in structions to look after me, and has kept him in the dark? Any way, I wish Blase Pellet was ——” The wish, whatever it might have been, was left unspoken.) For the comicbooks.com