Читать книгу Joe Leslie's Wife; or, a Skeleton in the Closet онлайн

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Before sitting down himself he took up a box of cigars and offered it to Joe.

The other looked at it rather sheepishly and then declined with a wave of the hand.

“Ah! sworn off, eh? Something I never expected such an old smoker as you to do; but every man to his taste. Now, old fellow, to what am I indebted for this visit—a desire to talk over old times, or business?”

Leslie seemed to swallow a lump in his throat, and playing nervously with the paper-cutter on the desk—which was a dagger taken from a notorious assassin whom Darrell had assisted to the gallows years before, said huskily:

“Eric, you are the only man in the world I would come to with domestic troubles. What I am about to confide in you now I do as to a friend. At the same time I ask for your assistance in a professional way.”

Then he seemed lost in deep thought for a minute, and was no doubt collecting his energies to speak to the point.

As for Eric Darrell, he surveyed the other in deepest surprise.

What was coming?

Was Joe Leslie deep in the mire, and had he come to have his old friend extricate him?