"The bar!" he demanded, and when the connection was made he added: "Two rye highs for 436." Then he turned his face toward me and grinned.
"Now, Randolph," he began quite amicably, "why keep me here any longer than you can help?"
"What d'you mean?"
"This: It's only about half-past ten—quarter to eleven. There is—there must be a train for the West round midnight. Why prolong the sweet agony of parting—why not let me go?"
"Now? You must be crazy!" I exploded nervously. "How can I get the money for you? Besides, there's another thing—I want you to sign something—something a lawyer must draw up—a paper of some sort—so you can't repeat this business."
"So that's it—is it?" he nodded his heavy head up and down, as though thinking aloud. "Well, put that out of your mind. I'll sign nothing. Take me for a fool? Here's your chance. Give me the money now and let me go or the deal's off. See? I'm just as anxious to go as you're to have me go. But I wasn't born yesterday. I'll sign no papers in any damn lawyer's office. Take it or leave it. That's that!"
There was something unspeakably horrible to me about sitting there and chaffering with this man whose every word breathed contamination. For a moment the thought of Dibdin came to me. I would call upon Dibdin in this emergency. Dibdin had hardly been near me of late. Excepting for an occasional luncheon together or a sporadic telephone conversation, I had scarcely seen him. It was as though he dreaded to encounter the monster Pendleton, whom, in a sort he had himself brought into being, and was only waiting until I should be free of him. But somehow I could not then call Dibdin. This was my crisis and my mind revolted at dragging any one else into it. Oddly enough it was not the children that seemed to be the barrier, but Alicia. The picture of Pendleton obscenely hovering over her came scorching, before my vision and I at once, dismissed the thought of calling upon Dibdin. The club,—that was my one chance of getting cash at that hour.
"What's the matter with your club?" Pendleton snapped me up so suddenly that I was startled. Could that fleshy brute read my thoughts?
"Just what I was thinking of," I murmured excitedly and snatched up the telephone. "Give me 9100 Bryant."
"Damn it—you're a sport! I like a dead game bird like you."