CHAPTER XIII
SIZZLING METAL
BURTON listened while he ate, and his cheerful comments were welcome enough after the depression of the last few days. I told him, after some hesitation, the whole thing, beginning with the Maitland pearls and ending with my drop down the dumbwaiter. I knew I was absolutely safe in doing so: there is no person to whom I would rather tell a secret than a newspaper man. He will go out of his way to keep it: he will lock it in the depths of his bosom, and keep it until seventy times seven. Also, you may threaten the rack or offer a larger salary, the seal does not come off his lips until the word is given. If then he makes a scarehead of it, and gets in three columns of space and as many photographs, it is his just reward.
So—I told Burton everything, and he
