He nodded his head determinedly. Haxon, watching him doubtfully, could experience no renewal of activity, no revival of hope. His faculties were completely prostrated. He could only fear.
"Now, go slow," he said, irritably anxious.
"You be bound I will," Lloyd reassured him.
A dull curiosity began to grow in Haxon's eyes that yet winced from the question.
"I have got a right to know. I'm a partner, and what you do will implicate me."
"I've a good mind to roll you on the floor till you're as thin as a sheet of paper," the athlete threatened, "only it's too good a stunt without a crowd. You may bet your immortal soul that nothing I do will implicate you or any other man."
"I just wanted to warn you," said Haxon mildly.
"I was warned beforehand," Lloyd protested.
The mental activity, the canvass for expedients that Lloyd had sought to rouse in Haxon's mind seemed now stimulated by the cessation of urgency on the manager's part. A vague sense of being shut out of his counsels was stirring uneasily in Haxon's consciousness—it put out a clutch after the plans in which he would not share.
"Now you take care you don't make no mistake."