In vain he pleaded with Halloran to release him, offering every kind of inducement, but the man was inexorable.

Your Cousin Kendale will pay me twice as much for detaining you here,” he answered with a boisterous laugh, adding: 

“Besides, I have a grudge against you of many years’ standing, Lester Armstrong, which this affair is wiping out pretty effectively.”

“I was not aware that I had ever seen you before,” replied Lester.

“Permit me to refresh your memory,” exclaimed the other grimly.  “When you were a boy of about fourteen years you attended the public school on Canal Street.”

“Yes,” said Lester, still mystified.

“At that time,” went on Halloran, “the school was unusually crowded, owing to the enforcement of the law that the children of the neighborhood must attend school, thus bringing in all the urchins of the poor thereabouts; you surely remember that?”

“It seems to me I have a faint recollection of some such circumstance,” replied Lester, eying the man who stood over him, his dark, scowling face growing more foreboding with each word he uttered.

“If you carry your mind back you will also remember that there was a ragged boy sitting to the right of you, who seemed to have a weakness for purloining your pencils and other like articles.”

Lester did not answer; his mind was traveling back to the time this man recalled.

“You will also recollect the boy who sat in front of you, who was the envy of all the boys in the school by being the possessor of a fine, new five-bladed jackknife, with which he used to whittle kites and whistles during recess.  Ah!  I see you do remember,” said Halloran grimly, “and you also remember the day the ragged boy, sitting at the right of you, believing no one was looking, reached over and quietly, deftly, inserted his hand in the other’s pocket and abstracted the coveted jackknife.

“He meant to as quietly replace it in the other’s pocket after he had whittled out a kite and whistle for himself; but, lo! without giving him time to carry out his intentions, you, good boy that you were, squealed and brought all the teachers in the room to the spot.  You cried out to them what had occurred, and the ragged lad was caught red-handed with the knife in his possession.  He was expelled from the school that day, but the affair did not end there.  The father of the boy who owned the knife was a great judge, and he caused the ragged lad to be sent to a State reformatory, where the next five years of his life were spent in rigid discipline—­stigmatized as a common thief!  And all these years the bitterness of a terrible hatred rankled in his bosom against you—­who were responsible for all this.

“And he vowed a bitter vow of vengeance, that he would repay that act of yours if it took him a lifetime to accomplish it; that he would make you suffer like one on the rack for thrice five years, and then tell you why.