“Grillage, you mean?”
“No; I tried him, and what do I get? He tells that big, black nigger porter of his to put me out of the car. I’ll show him—him and Vallory at the same clatter!”
The master gambler got up, as if to signify that he had heard enough.
“Better look out that you don’t get stepped on—like other worms—Simmy,” he warned; and then, reaching for the hanging lamp over the table to turn it out: “Get a crawl on you; I’m going to shut up shop.”
XXI
The Other David
WHEN David Vallory, plodding doggedly, reached the construction camp upon his return from Powder Can, he found Herbert Oswald waiting for him at the steps of the office bunk car.
“Everybody had gone to bed in the hotel, and I thought I’d straggle down to see if I could find your headquarters,” was the way in which the young lawyer accounted for himself. “If you are tired and want to turn in, you are at liberty to shoo me away.”
“No,” said David crisply. “Come on in.”
Oswald groped his way into the dark interior of the car at the heels of his crusty welcomer and found a seat on Plegg’s unoccupied bunk while David was lighting a lamp. At the blowing-out of the match, the lamp-lighter stood staring gloomily down upon his late-in-the-evening visitor.
“I know pretty well what you’ve come to say,” he thrust in gruffly. “Suppose you say it and have it over with.”