On the next day, the unemployed males of New York read this in the _Herald_:
_Wanted--A Brave Man. Wages One Hundred Dollars a Day. No Questions Answered. Apply Room 888, St. Iago Building._
There are many brave men in New York. When W. W. Lovell stepped from the elevator at the eighth floor he had almost to force his way through a crowd of men of all kinds--brutes and dreamers; sturdy animals, and boys with romance in their eyes; fierce-visaged, roughly dressed men, and fashionably attired chaps, with high-bred, impassive faces; young men seeking adventure and old men seeking bread. Lovell was darting keen glances at the men. He let his gaze linger on a man neither short nor tall, of about forty, who suggested determination rather than reckless courage. He was shabby with the shabbiness of a man who not only has worn the clothes a long time, but has slept in them. Lovell approached him and whispered:
"Are you really brave?" He looked anxiously into the man's face. The man, at the question and at the grins of his fellow-applicants, turned a brick-red.
"Before all these men?" There was a challenge in the hoarse whisper.
"If you want to," answered the man, with quick anger. He clenched his fists and braced his body, as for a shock.
"Come in!" and W. W. Lovell opened the door of 888.
"I'm braver than that guy!" interjected a youth, extremely broad-shouldered and thick-necked.
Mr. Lovell looked at him coldly, steadily, inquisitively, as though he would read the man's soul. He stared fully a minute and a half before the thick-set youngster dropped his gaze, whereupon Mr. Lovell pushed in the man he had picked out, followed him, and slammed the door in the faces of the others. They tried the door-knob in vain. It was a spring lock.
Mr. Lovell sat down at his desk, motioned to the man to draw near, and said, sternly:
Lovell gazed at him intently. He nodded to himself with satisfaction, and proceeded, in a painful whisper:
The man hesitated. Lovell frowned and, leaning forward, said:
"My name," said the man, determinedly, "is now W. W. Lowry."
"Do you know anything about travelers' checks used by the American Express Company?"
"Ten; no--eleven!" The man's face twitched. Remembrance was evidently not pleasant.