Offer

[rabidsamfan]

I lit my pipe, buying time to think before I spoke. This was not the listless, friendless invalid I had first known, but an accomplished man who had built a life which I had not always deigned to share. Charity was out of the question. So too was a position of servitude, for all that we had joked about his being my amanuensis not so long ago. That left me only one inducement, as difficult as it would be to swallow my own pride.

"Recent events," I began, meeting his eyes, "have proven to me that I require a partner..."