“We might tinker with the lock,” concluded Harry, running his fingers through his hair to settle the curls; “it’s worth a try, anyhow.”
“You’ll bounce right off,” declared Mr. Daw. “I tried to put a sweet one over in his home town, and he jolted the game so quick he made its teeth rattle.”
“Then you owe him one,” persisted Mr. Phelps, whom it pained to see other people have money. “Do you mean to say that any pumpkin husker can’t be trimmed?”
“Enjoy yourself,” invited Mr. Daw with a retrospective smile, “but count me out. I’m going to Boston next week, anyhow. I’m going to open a mine investment office there. It’s a nice easy money mining district.”
“For pocket mining,” agreed his friend dryly.
Young Wallingford, in his desire for everybody to be happy, looked around for them at this juncture, and further conversation was out of the question. The quartet lounged out of the Fifth Avenue bar and across Broadway in that dull way peculiar to their kind. At the Hoffman House bar they were joined by a cadaverous gentleman known to the police as Short-Card Larry, whose face was as that of a corpse, but whose lithe, slender fingers were reputed to have brains of their own, and the five of them sat down for a dull half-hour. Later they had dull dinner together, strolled dully into four theaters, and, still dull, wound up in the apartments of Daw and J. Rufus.
“What do you think of them?” asked Blackie in their first aside moment.
“They give me the pip,” announced J. Rufus frankly. “Why do they hate themselves so? Why do they sit in the darkest corners and bark at themselves? Can’t they ever drink enough to get oiled happy?”
“Not and do business with strangers on Broadway,” Daw explained. “Phelps has been shy about thin glassware for five years, ever since he let an Indiana come-on outdrink him and steal his own money back; Billy Banting stops after the third glass of anything, on account of his fat; the only time Larry Teller ever got pinched was for getting spifflicated and telling a reporter what police protection cost him.”