And so, at college, a full battalion of kindly sophomores had volunteered to teach him poker, and couldn’t understand why the profits went not to the teacher, but to the pupil. Immature professors, who liked to score off idlers and fat-brained sons of plutocrats, had selected him as the perfect target, and some of them had required several terms to realize that Standish, always baby-eyed, beau-attired and apparently dreaming of far distant things, was never lower in rank than the top twenty of his class. Out on the Field, visiting ends and tackles, meeting him for the first time, had 54 nearly laughed in his face, and prepared to slaughter him, only to discover, with alarm and horror which steadily increased from the first whistle to the last, that Standish could explode his muscles with such a burst of dynamic energy that his hundred and sixty pounds felt like two hundred and ten. It was equally discouraging to learn, from breathless experience, that when he was in his stride he was as unpursueable as a coyote; and that he could diagnose the other fellow’s tactics even before the other fellow had quite decided what to do next.
In commerce, he had merely continued the same species of career; and by virtue of being thoroughly depreciated, and even pitied, by his customers, he had risen in six years from the grade of city insurance solicitor to that of Mr. Starkweather’s principal assistant. And now, as casually as he had ever raked in a jack-pot from the bewildered sophomores, he had bought the Starkweather business, and not on a shoestring, either, as Mirabelle had suspected.
He had roomed with Henry at college; he had been his inseparable companion, out of office hours, ever since; he knew him too well to proffer any trite condolence. But his sympathy was firm and warm in his fingers when he shook hands and Henry got the message.
“Thought probably you’d rather not have me at the train,” said Standish, “so I didn’t come. Right or wrong?”
“Right, Bob.... Allow smoking in your sanctum?”
“Don’t allow anybody not to smoke. What are you doing––borrowing or offering?”
Henry glanced at Standish’s brand. “Neither one. Every man for himself––and you’ve got vile taste. Well, I hear you’re the big boss around here. Please, mister, gimme a job?”
“Nothing I’d like better,” said Standish. “I’ve got just the thing for you. Sit over on the window-sill and be a lily. Flowers brighten up an office so.”
“You basely misjudge me. Didn’t you know I’m going to work?”