“Drink with you!” he exclaimed sharply. “Drink with you!” His keen eyes blazed.
“Well, now, that wouldn’t hurt the quality of the whiskey any, would it?” grinned Ford. “Sorter smooth down the remainin’ little rough places between us—warm us both up into a more friendly understandin’, seem’ I’ve agreed to do for you all any man can do for another—give you my bona-fide guarantee.”
Enoch sprang forward, his clenched hands planted on his desk, his face livid.
“Get out, sir!” he shouted. For an instant his voice stopped in his throat, then broke out with a roar: “Out, sir! Out! When you have anything more substantial to offer me than an invitation to a rum mill I will listen to you.”
Before this volley of rage Ford backed away from him, backed out through the door that Enoch swung open to him, and the next instant slammed in his face with a sound that reverberated through the whole building.
Any other man but Ebner Ford would have turned down the corridor, dazed and insulted. As for Enoch’s door, it was not the first that had been slammed in his face. He could recall a long list of exits in his business career that were so alike in character they had ceased to make any serious impression upon him. His rule had been to allow time for the enraged person to cool off, and to tackle him again at the earliest opportunity—preferably after luncheon, when experience had taught him men were always in a more genial and approachable humor.
All of his past interviews, however, had been trivial compared to this with Enoch. He had entered his office keyed up with confidence and exuberance, and had backed out of it under the fury of a man who had laid bare his character and every secret detail of what he chose to call his “own private affairs”; bad enough when he arrived but ten times worse now as he realized the man he had to deal with.
Three things, however, were comforting. Enoch’s affirmed respect for his wife and stepdaughter in regard to the overrent; his open, almost paternal affection for Sue, and his word that he would give him two weeks in which to settle with Miss Moulton. As for old Mrs. Miggs, he decided to send her a check for half the amount out of Miss Ann’s money and see what would happen.
That he drank his Bourbon alone on the first corner he reached, the bartender agreeably changing another one of Miss Ann’s dollars, only helped to sharpen his wits. He stood on the sawdusted floor of the saloon, at the bar, hemmed in between the patched elbows of a boatswain’s mate and a common sailor, ruminating over the overwhelming events of the morning.