This was Robert Tindle, a chap with a sloping forehead, long, straight nose, and eyes the color of cheap glass marbles — a watery green, covered with a film that was like scum. You felt that if you looked at those eyes closely, you’d see lots of little air bubbles. His face didn’t have any particular expression, and all I could think of when I looked at him was the ad for the contented cows.
He wore a dinner jacket and shook hands without enthusiasm.
Parker Stold evidently had something on his mind. He regarded our visit as an interruption, and acknowledged the introduction to me with a quick “Please’-t’-meetcha” and didn’t offer to shake hands. His eyes were a little too close together, but his hair was wavy, and he had a nice mouth. I figured he was a little older than Bob.
The butler got me up at seven o’clock the next morning. I shaved, dressed, and went down to the gymnasium. It was a big, bare room on the basement floor just back of the billiard room. It had the smell of never having been used. There were a punching bag, horizontal bars, Indian clubs, dumbbells, weight-lifting machines, a canvas wrestling mat, and, at the far end, a squared ring for boxing. There were boxing gloves hanging on a rack. I went over and looked at them. The price tags, which had turned yellow with age, were still tied by a faded-green string to the laces.
I was wearing a pair of tennis shoes, slacks, and an athletic undershirt. When Henry Ashbury came in, he was bundled up in a bathrobe. He slipped it off and stood with nothing on but some boxer’s tights.
He looked like hell.
“Well,” he said, “here we are.”
He looked down at his watermelon paunch. “I suppose I’ve got to do something about this.” He walked over to the weight-lifting machine and began tugging away at the weights and puffing and blowing. After a minute he stepped aside and nodded toward them. “Do you want a workout?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Neither do I, but I’ve got to.”