Bell's, Johnson! what is it you want--food?--drink?--a woman?"

The unshaven man's eyes shone with an unholy light.

"What would you do for twenty-five dollars?"

The unshaven man said nothing. He looked everything.

"Do you know the McIver woman?"

"Fanny?"

The legless man granted. "Yes. Fanny. She'll look at you if you've got
money."

"She'd crawl through a sewer to find a dime."

"Quite so," the legless man commented dryly. "Well, it wouldn't matter
to me if she went on a tear and was found dead in her bed."

"It's worth fifty." Something in the unshaven man's voice suggested that
he had once been remotely connected with some sort of a business.

The legless man shook his head. "Judas Iscariot," he said, "betrayed the
Lord God for thirty. Fanny McIver's scalp isn't worth a cent over
twenty-five. You're just a broken-down drunk. It takes a bigger bluffer
than you to make me put an insult on Christendom. Fifteen down. Ten when
Fanny's had her last hang-over."

"Why don't you do some of your dirty work yourself?"