“If some of you fellers could get rid of your reputations,” interrupted Caleb, “you’d be in luck.”
A man at Standish’s left had risen and was awaiting a moment of silence in which to speak. He was nattily clad in blue reefer and white duck trousers. A yachting cap lay on the table beside him. Every inch of his stalwart body from the curling black hair and pink cheeks down to the immaculate white canvas shoes bespoke a perfection of grooming that seemed vaguely redolent of scented soap and tailors’ models. His full red lips were curled back now from a double set of ultra-pearly teeth, and his eyes, which Desirée Shevlin had disrespectfully likened to twin chocolate pies, were glassy with wrath.
“Well, Brother Blacarda,” hailed Conover, breaking off in his reply as his gaze rested on this latest opponent who stood threateningly above him, “What have you got to say? Did you come to congratulate me on the Steeloid win-out, or have you somethin’ to add to the bokays that your little friends here have been tossin’ at me? Speak up, man! Stop lookin’ like ‘This-Nobby-Style-$7.49,’ an’ say what you’ve got to.”
“You’ve played a trick on my Steeloid Company,” sputtered Blacarda, “that ought to land you in State’s Prison with your crook father. A trick that ought to put you out of the society of decent men. It will certainly put you out of this Club. Either you leave the Arareek or I do.”
“Well, now, that’s too bad, Blacarda,” purred Caleb, “Us chappies at the Club will be real sorry to lose you. But if you must go,—why take my blessin’ with you.”
“This man, gentlemen,” pursued Blacarda, loudly, wheeling to face the rest, “has, by dirty chicanery, absorbed all the Independent Steeloid Companies,—my own among the number,—in his iniquitous Trust. Let him deny it if he dares to.”
“Deny it?” laughed Caleb, “Not me! Best day’s work of my life. Cleaned up an easy million on the deal. Watcher you goin’ to do about it?”
“Do about it?” gasped Blacarda. “Do about it? There’s a law in the land and—”
“That’s so,” assented Caleb, “A Fed’ral law an’ a law of States, too. It’s lucky those two laws ain’t the same. Otherwise, you’d have been outlawed from the whole country instead of only from Iowa, the time you promoted that fake Des Moines Improvement Comp’ny. But that’s neither here nor there. I’m told you’re goin’ to carry our Steeloid squabble to the Legislature. I tell you in advance, you’ll lose. You may be able to swing part of the Assembly, but I can do a little swingin’ myself, up there. You’ll find the Steeloid Trust is goin’ to win at the Capital as easy as it won to-day at—”
“We have Right behind us,” blustered Blacarda, “and—”