He laughed mischievously. "I suppose you know that you are credited with being at their head?"
Dick, in the act of striking a match, paused. He looked at the other man with raised brows. "At their head?" he questioned. "What do you mean?"
Without the smallest change of countenance Saltash enlightened him. "As strike-leader, agitator, and so on. You have achieved an enviable reputation by your philanthropy. Didn't you know?"
Dick struck the match with an absolutely steady hand, and held it to his cigarette. "I did not," he said.
Saltash puffed at the cigarette, peering at him curiously through the smoke. "Which may account for your failure to find Ivor Yardley," he suggested after a moment.
"In what way?" said Dick.
Saltash straightened himself. "I imagine he is not a great believer in—philanthropy," he said.
Dick's eyes shone with an ominous glitter. "From my point of view these insinuations are not worth considering," he said, "though no doubt it has given you a vast amount of enjoyment to fabricate them."
"I!" said Saltash.
"You!" said Dick.