“You saw what I was trying to do a few minutes ago. The outcome dovetails accurately with everything else I have attempted since I parted with the final dollar of the even thousand with which I was disinherited. Failure seems to be my baptismal name.”
“What is your name?”
“Henry Wigglesworth Bromley. Please don’t smile at the middle third of it. That is a family heirloom—worse luck. But to the matter in hand: I’m afraid I’m detaining you. Shall I—‘mog,’ is the proper frontier word, I believe—shall I mog along down-town and surrender myself to the police?”
“Would you do that if I should tell you to?”
“Why not, if you require it? You are the victor, and to the victors belong the spoils—such as they are. If you hunger for vengeance, you shall have it. Only I warn you in advance that it won’t be complete. If the police lock me up, they will probably feed me, so you won’t be punishing me very savagely.”
For once in a way Philip yielded to an impulse, a prompting that he was never afterward able to trace to any satisfactory source. Dropping the captured revolver into his coat pocket, he pressed a gold piece into the hand of the amateur hold-up.
“Say that I’ve bought your gun and go get you a square meal,” he said, trying to say it gruffly. “Afterward, if you feel like it, go and sit in the lobby of the American House for your after-dinner smoke. I’m not making it mandatory. If you’re not there when I get back, it will be all right.”
“Thank you; while I’m eating I’ll think about that potential appointment. If I can sufficiently forget the Wigglesworth in my name I may keep the tryst, but don’t bank on it. I may—with a full-fed stomach—have a resurgence of the Wigglesworth family pride, and in that case——”
“Good-night,” said Philip abruptly, and went his way toward the tent colony in the next open square, wondering again where the impulse to brother this impish but curiously engaging highwayman came from.