“You got nothing on me, Jim,” protested the other, losing his taste for the delicacies arrayed about him.
“Well, we got ’o go down to Headquarters and talk that over,” calmly persisted Blake.
“What’s the use of pounding me, when I’m on the square again?” persisted the ex-drum snuffer.
“That’s the line o’ talk they all hand out. That’s what Connie Binhart said when we had it out up in St. Louis.”
“Did you bump into Binhart in St. Louis?”
“We had a talk, three days ago.”
“Then why’d he blow through this town as though he had a regiment o’ bulls and singed cats behind him!”
Blake’s heart went down like an elevator with a broken cable. But he gave no outward sign of this inward commotion.
“Because he wants to get down to Colon before the Hamburg-American boat hits the port,” ventured Blake. “His moll’s aboard!”
“But he blew out for ’Frisco this morning,” contended the puzzled Sheiner. “Shot through as though he’d just had a rumble!”