“We’ll all go. It’s appropriate to go as a body, if one goes there at all.”
“Frank,” said Bright, gravely, “be funny if you can. Be ghastly if you like. But if you make puns, make them at a man of your own size. It’s safer.”
The little man chirped pleasantly in answer, as he trotted along between the two. He believed, innocently enough, that Bright and Ralston had been at the point of a quarrel, and that he had saved the situation with his nonsense.
At the end of the street, where it makes a corner with Broadway, stands a big hotel. Ralston glanced at the door on Thirty-second Street, which is the ladies’ entrance, and stopped in his walk.
“I want to leave a card on some people at the Imperial,” he said. “I’ll be back in a moment.” And he disappeared within.
Bright and Miner stood waiting outside.
“Do you believe that—about leaving a card?” asked Miner, after a pause.
“I don’t know,” answered Bright.
“Because I think he’s got the beginning of a ‘jag’ on him now. He’s gone in for something short to settle that long drink. Pity, isn’t it?”
Bright did not answer at once.