"Then why couldn't you accidentally miss a message? Or why couldn't you send it out without being sure that it was going to carry clear across to the next operator?"
McKinnon still looked at the other man. There was something so placid and intimate about the tones of the stranger's voice that the very purport of his suggestion had seemed robbed of its enormity.
"I wouldn't do a thing like that for five hundred dollars!" the operator at last declared.
The stranger looked back at him without a move of his great body in the steamer-chair. McKinnon's glance of open contempt in nowise disturbed him.
"I'll give you one thousand dollars if you do it!" he said. His voice was quiet and casual as he spoke, but again the operator swung about and peered at him. He opened his lips to reply, and then suddenly became silent. He shifted in his chair, as though to draw away from some tangible and precipitating temptation.
"I'll give you one thousand dollars," repeated the stranger, "and I'll promise to stand between you and any trouble you're afraid of."
"It's not what I'm afraid of," the other retorted.
"Then what is it? You fail to catch a message or two, and no one's the wiser. What of
