At last, throwing down the hand glass in which he had been inspecting the whole effect, Dick snatched up a disreputable derby from the chair, and, clapping it on his head, tore open the door and disappeared, leaving his chum staring at the closed portal in a dazed fashion.
“Well, I’ll—be—hanged!” he exclaimed presently.
CHAPTER XXIX
DICK MAKES A DISCOVERY.
J. Harry Edgerton had spent such a busy day in town that he missed the Merchants’ Limited and was obliged to take the 5:30 train from the Grand Central, which did not get him to New Haven until after seven. It was, in fact, exactly twenty-five minutes past when he stepped out of the cab at the entrance to the New Haven House and made his way leisurely into the lobby.
As his smiling, cherubic countenance loomed like a full moon in the doorway, Clarence Carr, who had been waiting impatiently for some time, stepped quickly forward.
“Well!” he said, rather shortly, “I expected you an hour ago, at the latest. What under the sun kept you so long?”
“Patience, my sweet Dromio,” gurgled the fat fellow, with a pacifying wave of his hand. “Don’t fly at me like an angry cat. All is well. Better than we hoped for, in fact. But let us lubricate. I cannot—simply cannot—orate in my present parched condition of throat. It feels like the desert of Sahara—I give you my word it does.”
The broker’s face relaxed considerably.
“Well, come along, then,” he returned. “I could manage one or two myself.”