"Oh, don't yarn!" she interrupted. "I'm not squealing. You knew very well that I'd no need to take a post as telephone operator, and you did your duty when you got me turned off. It was very clever of you," she went on, "to tumble to me."
Crawshay accepted the compliment with a smile.
"If you will permit me to say so, Miss Sharey," he declared, "you are what we call in this country a good sportsman."
"Oh, I can keep on the tracks all right," she assented. "I guess I am a little easier to deal with, for instance, than your friend Mr. Jocelyn Thew."
Crawshay frowned. His expression became gloomier.
"I am bound to confess, Miss Sharey," he sighed, "that your friend Mr.
Jocelyn Thew has been the disappointment of my life."
"Some brains, eh?"
"He has brains, courage and luck," Crawshay pronounced. "Against these three things it is very hard work to bring off—shall I say a coup?"
"The man who gets the better of Jocelyn Thew," she declared, with a little laugh, "deserves all the nuts. He is a sure winner every time. You're up against him now, aren't you?"
"More or less," Crawshay confessed. "I crossed on the steamer with him."