Now that he was out of Enoch’s drastic presence and voice, he felt at his ease, and more so when he had laid another one of Miss Ann’s dimes on the bar, freshly wiped from the beer spill, and ordered a second Bourbon.
“Thinks a heap of girlie,” he mused. “Wa’n’t so savage about the rent, after all.” As he thought of Sue there flashed through his mind an idea, so sudden that he started, and his small eyes sparkled, so perfectly logical to him that he grinned and wondered why, during the whole of the strenuous interview, he had not thought of it before.
Instead, he had clutched at the idea of “Fairview Park,” his entire acquaintance with its existence dating from a real-estate advertisement he had read in a newspaper several weeks old, he adding to its popularity and magnificence by capping the mythical mansion of the candy king with a mansard roof worth a fortune, and further embellishing its undesirable acres with the hope of a railroad-station. Only the air changed in Fairview Park; the rest had lain a flat failure for years, the home of crows and the sign-boards they avoided, announcing the best cigar and the cheapest soap.
That Enoch would investigate the truth of his statements gave him little apprehension. He was certain he had convinced him of his good faith, building lots and all. What elated him now was his sudden idea—an inspiration-and his first step in that direction took him out of the saloon and on his way to see Lamont.
On a crowded corner in Fulton Street a newsboy bawled in his passing ear:
“Here yer are! Git the extry, boss! All about the big club scandal——”
Ford stopped and glanced at the head-line, “Millionaire Slaps Clubman’s Face,” and below it saw the face in question.
It was Jack Lamont’s.
CHAPTER XVI
Gossip, that imaginative, swift-footed, and altogether disreputable slave of Hearsay, who runs amuck, distributing his pack of lies from one telltale tongue to the next eager ear, rich in clever exaggerations, never at a loss for more—far-reaching as contagion, and heralding all else but the truth—seldom affects the poor.