When I saw I was to have a respite of a month or so, I went over to the National Industrial Bank with Healey's roll, which my tellers had counted and prepared for deposit. I finished my business with the receiving teller of the National Industrial, and dropped in on my friend Lewis, the first vice-president. I did not need to pretend coolness and confidence; my nerves were still in that curious state of tranquil exhilaration, and I felt master of myself and of the situation. Just as I was leaving, in came Tom Langdon with Sam Ellersly.
Tom's face was a laughable exhibit of embarrassment. Sam—really, I felt sorry for him. There was no reason on earth why he shouldn't be with Tom Langdon; yet he acted as if I had caught him “with the goods on him.” He stammered and stuttered, clasped my hand eagerly, dropped it as if it had stung him; he jerked out a string of hysterical nonsense, ending with a laugh so crazy that the sound of it disconcerted him. Drink was the explanation that drifted through my mind; but in fact I thought little about it, so full was I of other matters.
“When is your brother returning?” said I to Tom.
“On the next steamer, I believe,” he replied. “He went only for the rest and the bath of sea air.” With an effort he collected himself, drew me aside and said: “I owe you an apology, Mr. Blacklock. I went to the steamer with Mowbray to see him off, and he asked me to tell you about our new dividend rate—though it was not to be made public for some time. Anyhow, he told me to go straight to you—and I—frankly, I forgot it.” Then, with the winning, candid Langdon smile, he added, ingenuously: “The best excuse in the world—yet the one nobody ever accepts.”
“No apology necessary,” said I with the utmost good nature. “I've no personal interest in Textile. My house deals on commission only, you know—never on margins for myself. I'm a banker and broker, not a gambler. Some of our customers were alarmed by the news of the big increase, and insisted on bringing suit to stop it. But I'm going to urge them now to let the matter drop.”
Tom tried to look natural, and as he is an apt pupil of his brother's, he succeeded fairly well. His glance, however, wouldn't fix steadily on my gaze, but circled round and round it like a bat at an electric light. “To tell you the truth,” said he, “I'm extremely nervous as to what my brother will say—and do—to me, when I tell him. I hope no harm came to you through my forgetfulness.”
“None in the world,” I assured him. Then I turned on Sam. “What are you doing down town to-day?” said I. “Are you on your way to see me?”
He flushed with angry shame, reading an insinuation into my careless remark, when I had not the remotest intention of reminding him that his customary object in coming down town was to play the parasite and the sponge at my expense. I ought to have guessed at once that there was some good reason for his recovery of his refined, high-bred, gentlemanly super-sensibilities; but I was not in the mood to analyze trifles, though my nerves were taking careful record of them.
“Oh, I was just calling on Tom,” he replied rather haughtily.
Then Melville himself came in, brushing back his white tufted burnsides and licking his lips and blinking his eyes—looking for all the world like a cat at its toilet.