"You see, Poinsett, as a man of business I don't go as much into society as you do, but she seems to be a straight up and down girl, eh?" he queried, as they stood together in the vestibule after the ladies had departed. It is hardly necessary to say that Arthur was positive and sincere in his praise of the young woman. Mr. Dumphy by some obscure mental process, taking much of the praise to himself, was highly elated and perhaps tempted to a greater vinous indulgence than was his habit. Howbeit the last bottle of champagne seemed to have obliterated all past suspicion of Arthur, and he shook him warmly by the hand. "I tell ye what now, Poinsett, if there are any points I can give you don't you be afraid to ask for 'em. I can see what's up between you and the widow—honour, you know—all right, my boy—she's in the Conroy lode pretty deep, but I'll help her out and you too! You've got a good thing there—Poinsett—and I want you to realise. We understand each other, eh? You'll find me a square man with my friends, Poinsett. Pitch in—pitch in!—my advice to you is to just pitch in and marry the widow. She's worth it—you can realise on her. You see you and me's—so to speak—ole pards, eh? You rek'leck ole times on Sweetwater, eh? Well—if you mus' go, goo'-bi! I s'pose she's waitin' for ye. Look you, Poinsy, d'ye see this yer posy in my buttonhole? She give it to me. Rosey did! eh? ha! ha! Won't tak' nothin' drink? Lesh open n'or bo'll. No? Goori!" until struggling between disgust, amusement, and self-depreciation, Arthur absolutely tore himself away from the great financier and his degrading confidences.
When Mr. Dumphy staggered back into his drawing-room, a servant met him with a card.
"The gen'lman says it's very important business, and he must see you to-night," he said, hastily, anticipating the oath and indignant protest of his master. "He says it's your business, sir, and not his. He's been waiting here since you came back, sir."
Mr. Dumphy took the card. It bore the inscription in pencil, "Colonel Starbottle, Siskiyou, on important business." Mr. Dumphy reflected a moment. The magical word "business" brought him to himself. "Show him in—in the office," he said savagely, and retired thither.
Anybody less practical than Peter Dumphy would have dignified the large, showy room in which he entered as the library. The rich mahogany shelves were filled with a heterogeneous collection of recent books, very fresh, very new and glaring as to binding and subject; the walls were hung with files of newspapers and stock reports. There was a velvet-lined cabinet containing minerals—all of them gold or silver bearing. There was a map of an island that Mr. Dumphy owned—there was a marine view, with a representation of a steamship also owned by Mr. Dumphy. There was a momentary relief from these facts in a very gorgeous and badly painted picture of a tropical forest and sea-beach, until inquiry revealed the circumstance that the sugar-house in the corner under a palm-tree was "run" by Mr. Dumphy, and that the whole thing could be had for a bargain.
The stranger who entered was large and somewhat inclined to a corpulency that was, however, restrained in expansion by a blue frock coat, tightly buttoned at the waist, which had the apparent effect of lifting his stomach into the higher thoracic regions of moral emotion—a confusion to which its owner lent a certain intellectual assistance. The Colonel's collar was very large, open and impressive; his black silk neckerchief loosely tied around his throat, occupying considerable space over his shirt front, and expanding through the upper part of a gilt-buttoned white waistcoat, lent itself to the general suggestion that the Colonel had burst his sepals and would flower soon. Above this unfolding the Colonel's face, purple, aquiline-nosed, throttle-looking as to the eye, and moist and sloppy-looking as to the mouth, up-tilted above his shoulders. The Colonel entered with that tiptoeing celerity of step affected by men who are conscious of increasing corpulency. He carried a cane hooked over his forearm; in one hand a large white handkerchief, and in the other a broad-brimmed hat. He thrust the former gracefully in his breast, laid the latter on the desk where Mr. Dumphy was seated, and taking an unoffered chair himself, coolly rested his elbow on his cane in an attitude of easy expectancy.
"Say you've got important business?" said Dumphy. "Hope it is, sir—hope it is! Then out with it. Can't afford to waste time any more here than at the Bank. Come! What is it?"
Not in the least affected by Mr. Dumphy's manner, whose habitual brusqueness was intensified to rudeness, Colonel Starbottle drew out his handkerchief, blew his nose, carefully returned apparently only about two inches of the cambric to his breast, leaving the rest displayed like a ruffled shirt, and began with an airy gesture of his fat white hand.
"I was here two hours ago, sir, when you were at the—er—festive board. I said to the boy, 'Don't interrupt your master. A gentleman worshipping at the shrine of Venus and Bacchus and attended by the muses and immortals, don't want to be interrupted.' Ged, sir, I knew a man in Louisiana—Hank Pinckney—shot his boy—a little yellow boy worth a thousand dollars—for interrupting him at a poker party—and no ladies present! And the boy only coming in to say that the gin house was in flames. Perhaps you'll say an extreme case. Know a dozen such. So I said, 'Don't interrupt him, but when the ladies have risen, and Beauty, sir, no longer dazzles and—er—gleams, and the table round no longer echoes the—er—light jest, then spot him! And over the deserted board, with—er—social glass between us, your master and I will have our little confab.'"
He rose, and before the astonished Dumphy could interfere, crossed over to a table where a decanter of whisky and a carafe of water stood, and filling a glass half-full of liquor, reseated himself and turned it off with an easy yet dignified inclination towards his host.