Jack, misunderstanding his quotation of the “fickle jade,” interpreting it as meant for Virginia, at once replied:
“The jade may smile and smile, and be a villain, but she must ‘pungle’ up the ‘dough.’” And pouring some liquor in the glass he drained it.
Jack’s misapplication of the popular quotation caused Phil to smile, then to chuckle. “Ha, ha, ha, ha, the jade!”
Then he produced a couple of cigars from his vest pocket, and offering one to Jack, continued: “She deserves no mercy.”
“None whatever,” replied Jack, as he took the cigar.
“If she had not weakened, we should never have selected her to pay the ransom,” resumed Rutley.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha,” laughed Jack, as he put a match to the cigar. “Her penitent mood makes her an easy mark. The price of her atonement’ll be twenty thousand dollars.”
Again Rutley chuckled, chuckled convivially, for evidently the softening influence of the liquor relaxed his tensely attuned nerves. “Ha, my boy, she shall not enjoy the bliss of restoring the child to her mother. I shall be the hero in this case,” and he lowered his voice. “After Virginia has paid the ransom, I shall take the child to her father.” Then he looked at Jack significantly and laughed—laughed in a singularly sinister, yet highly pitched suppressed key.
Jack penetrated Rutley’s purpose at once and the prodigious nerve of the fellow caused him likewise to laugh. But Jack’s laugh was different from Rutley’s, in so much that it conveyed, though suppressed and soft, an air of rollicking abandon.
“And get the reward of ten thousand dollars offered for the child’s recovery.”