"I know we're not friends," said Agnew, with the suavity of a confidence man, "but that is no reason why we should always remain foes. I saw you here, and you looked lonesome. I'm a rather lonesome bird myself to-night, so I whistled to you."
"I allow you've the most gall of any man I ever saw!" was Badger's thought.
Aloud, he said:
"We'll go down this way, then. Did I look lonesome? Well, I wasn't feeling any lonesome, I can tell you—none whatever!"
"Perhaps you object to my company?" drawing back.
Badger knew that this was a piece of acting, and he wanted to crack Agnew on the jaw for it. But he held himself in check. Really Badger seemed to be gaining some self-control—a thing that was entirely foreign to him when he first knew Merriwell. He was enabled to hold himself in by the intense desire he felt to discover if Agnew slipped the "fixed" shell into the box. That was an important point just then.
"Come along!" the Westerner grunted. "You said that you were lonesome, if I am not. I'm not so hoggish as to want to run away from a man who thinks he can get good out of my company."
"I like to hear you talk that way," said Agnew, linking his arm in the Kansan's.
The touch made Badger's flesh creep, but he held this feeling in check, too.
"Here's a saloon!" said Agnew, after they had walked a considerable distance without saying anything of moment. "Let's go in. We can talk in there. I never like to chatter much on the street."