Howard grinned in drunken fashion.
"It's the one thing I do punctually," he hiccoughed. "I can row, swim, play tennis, football, golf and polo as well as anybody, but I'll be damned if I can do anything quite as well as I can do this."
"What do you want $2,000 for?" demanded Underwood.
"I've got an opportunity to go into business. I want $2,000 and I want it deuced quick."
Underwood shrugged his shoulders.
"Why don't you go home and ask your father?" he demanded.
His visitor seemed offended at the suggestion.
"What!" he exclaimed, with comic surprise, "after being turned out like a dog with a young wife on my hands! Not much—no. I've injured their pride. You know father married a second time, loaded me down with a stepmother. She's all right, but she's so confoundedly aristocratic. You know her. Say, didn't you and she—wasn't there some sort of an engagement once? Seems to me I——"
Underwood rose to his feet and abruptly turned his back.
"I'd rather you wouldn't get personal," he said curtly. Sitting down at a desk, he began to rummage with some papers and, turning impatiently to Howard, he said: