Sabath came to see him. He had been sent. John knew it and Sabath knew he knew it.
“When are you going to see Mr. Bullguard?” he asked.
“I’m here nearly every day,” said John.
“Mr. Bullguard is performing a great public service,” said Sabath, with not a twinkle, as if they did not understand each other down to the ground. “He’s trying to get all you gamblers out of the steel business and bring some peace to the country. And because he spanked you once when you were in knee pants, now you’re as proud as a pig with a ribbon in its hereafter. I’ll tell him what I’ve said.”
“Except the pig allusion. I’ll lay odds you won’t repeat that.”
“I will,” said Sabath, departing. “I will.”
John’s partners began to be alarmed. He kept nothing from them. When they importuned him to bend a little, thinking his obduracy might have disastrous consequences for all of them, he would say: “It amuses me and it will pay you.”
One morning Sabath’s voice called him on the telephone, saying: “The great mountain is walking. You damn gamblers! Do you want everything in the world?”
“Thanks,” said John.
Twenty minutes later Bullguard appeared. He walked right in, sat on the edge of a chair, crossed his arms, leaned forward on his stick, and glared. When he glared the world was supposed to tremble. He was rather awful to look at. His purple face was of a strawberry texture; his nose was monstrous, angry, red, bulbous, with hairy warts upon it; his eyebrows were almost vertical.