The old gentleman tried twice to speak before a word would come.
"You! You--the Gray Seal!" he stammered at last. "But only to-night I
was reading in the papers, and they said you were a murderer, an ogre of
hell, and--"
"And now, possibly," interrupted Jimmie Dale whimsically, "though
circumstances will force you to keep your opinion to yourself, you may
have an idea that, as between you and the papers, you are the better
informed. Well, at least, the Gray Seal's shoulders are broad! You need
not worry about Thorold or old Jake; I took pains to make them aware
that the Gray Seal--quite inadvertently, of course--had taken a passing
fancy to the pendant. You have only to wrap it up, and send it by mail
to _yourself_; and when it arrives"--he laughed softly, as he stood
up--"notify the police again. Let them do the theorising--it is one of
their cherished amusements! And, oh, by the way, colonel, have you any
idea how much Thorold and his precious friend Kisnieff have blackmailed
you out of in the last two years?"
"I did not have very much left when I came to New York," said the
colonel, in a stunned way, still staring at the gray paper seal.
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