"Get in," he said. "I want to have a talk with you."
The drive of a mile and more from Bradbury Avenue to Barclay's quarters in the new bachelor apartment-house "Rockingham" was accomplished without the exchange of a word. Once, he felt his companion shiver, and dragging a rug from under them, he spread it across their knees. That was the only movement on the part of either. They sat, side by side, looking straight before them over the horse's bobbing crupper, until the hansom pulled up sharply before the broad and brilliantly illuminated entrance of the "Rockingham." As they passed in, Cavendish had a passing impression of tiled floors, columns of green marble, and attendants in tightly fitting green uniforms with brass buttons. Then an elevator whirled them up to the eighth floor, deposited them in a square hallway, and vanished again, with the little page in charge wrinkling his nose and biting the thumb of his cotton glove.
"Wot's the Loot'nt-Guvnor up to now, Sawed-Off?" inquired the doorkeeper genially, as the elevator returned to the ground floor.
"Ide'no!" replied the little page with equal affability. "Goin' in fer pol'tics, I guest. Jeest! Wot a slob it wuz—wot?"
The Lieutenant-Governor unlocked the door of his apartment, touched an electric button which flooded the little hall and the drawing-room beyond with light, and, entering the latter, went directly to a closet in the wall. Unlocking this, he took out a jar of biscuits and a decanter, and setting them upon the table, turned once more to his companion.
"Put away a couple of those biscuits and a glass of sherry," he said, "and then we'll talk."
"I'm past biscuits," said the other, almost sullenly.
"I'll see to that," replied Barclay. "They are only by way of a starter."
He passed into the hall as he spoke, and presently Cavendish heard the click of a telephone receiver slipping from its crotch, and Barclay's voice speaking, to some one below, of a steak, vegetables, salad, and coffee. He stepped to the table, devoured two or three of the biscuits ravenously, poured himself a glass of sherry, sipped, and then swallowed it, and flung himself down upon a wide divan.
"Have you a cigarette?" he asked, as Barclay reëntered. "I haven't smoked in three days. That's worse than mere hunger, you know."