“Thirty,” growled Henderson.
“Buyin’ for Dickover or yourself?” asked Bowen softly.
The agent uttered a lurid curse. Bowen rose and kicked away his chair, and opened the door.
“I thought so,” he remarked cheerfully. “Well, I guess that check’s cashed, so I’ll mosey along. You needn’t wait here for Miss Ferguson; she won’t be back for quite a spell. And don’t come down in my elevator; wait till I’m out of the way. And say—when you do come, shut the door after you, will you? So-long.”
Bowen closed the door softly and strode off to the elevator. On the way down, he glanced at his watch. It was nine fifty.
“Lots of time,” he thought. “I’ll see Dickover, then meet the little lady.”
At two minutes before the hour he inquired at the desk for Dickover, and was sent up to the latter’s suite. He found Dickover declaiming to a private secretary, who admitted him and then retired discreetly. Bob Bowen dropped into a chair beside Dickover’s table and accepted the cigar shoved at him.
“I like your cigars,” he observed pleasantly. “The flavor is a little strong for my taste, but it’s real tobacco. And then the label is pretty. Don’t know when I’ve ever seen a prettier one—”
“Confound you!” snapped the fat man. “What d’ you know?”
“Well, I’m thirty years old, pretty near, and you’d be surprised to find how much I’ve learned in the last decade of that time! Experience is—”