most men would have turned to admire the
softness of its fur and to glance at the heavy collar with the silver
studs. But I knew the Eskimo breed, having spent a summer in Labrador.

I stroked the beast, which lay down at my feet, raising its head
sometimes to whine, and sometimes darting off a little way and coming
back to tug at the lower edge of my overcoat. But my mind was too much
occupied for me to take any but a perfunctory interest in its
manoeuvres. My eight years of thankless drudgery as a clerk, following
on a brief adventurous period after I ran away to sea from my English
home, had terminated three days before, upon receipt of a legacy, and I
had at once left Tom Carson's employment.

Six thousand guineas--thirty thousand dollars--the will said. I had
not seen my uncle since I was a boy. But he had been a bachelor, we
were both Hewletts, and I had been named Paul after him.

I had seen for some time that Carson meant to get rid of me. It had
been a satisfaction to me to get rid of him instead.

He had been alternately a prospector and a company promoter all the
working years of his rather shabby life. He had organized some dubious
concerns; but his new offices on Broadway were fitted so
unostentatiously that anyone could see the Northern Exploitation
Company was not trying to glitter for the benefit of the small investor.

Coal fields and timber-land somewhere in Canada, the concession was
supposed to be. But Tom was as secretive as a clam, except with Simon
Leroux.

Leroux was a parish politician from some place near Quebec, and his
clean-shaven, wrinkled face was as hard and mean as that of any city
boss in the United States. His vile Anglo-French expletives were as
nauseous as his cigars. He and old Tom used to be closeted together
for hours at a time.

I never liked the man, and I never cared for Carson's business ways. I
was glad to leave him the day after my legacy arrived.

He only snorted when I gave him notice, and told the cashier to pay me
my salary to date. He had long before summed me up as a spiritless
drudge. I don't believe he gave another thought to me after I left his
office.

My plans were vague. I had been occupying, at a low rental, a tiny
apartment consisting of two rooms, a bath, and what is called a
"kitchenette" at the top of an old building in Tenth Street which was
about to be pulled down. Part of the roof was gone already, and there
was a six-foot hole u