“Just watch me!” he cried. “I’ve been roughing it for years, in one way and another; mining camps, oil leases, cattle ranches and even a tramp steamer.”
“Really? You haven’t told me a thing about yourself yet, Jack. The last I heard of you, you were working in a bank out in Chicago.”
“Yeah!” Horton snorted disgustedly. “Nice kid-glove-and-silk-hat job; thirty bucks a week and a bum lung.—Say, where can I put this bag of mine?”
“Why, leave it here.” Storm stared. “Nobody is going to walk off with it.”
“Not if I know it, they’re not!” returned his guest with emphasis. “I’ve got some mighty important stuff in here. Got any place where I can lock it up? I’d feel easier in my mind——”
“Why, of course!” Storm threw open a closet door. “Here, keep the key yourself if it will give you any satisfaction. Now come on; I’m hungry, myself.”
They found the pantry well stocked and made a hearty meal. Storm, usually an abstemious drinker, poured out a second Scotch and under its influence grew expansive. He regaled his guest with tales of high finance, adroitly registering his own importance in the trust company and his intimacy with men of large affairs. It was only later when they returned again to the living-room that he became conscious of a seeming reticence on the part of his friend.
“But tell me about yourself,” he demanded. “Will you smoke? Try one of these.”
He offered the humidor, and Horton selected a cigar and eyed it almost reverently.
“A fifty-center!” he exclaimed. “Gee, you’re hitting the high spots, all right, and I don’t wonder after what you’ve been telling me! As to myself—well, I’m no great shakes, but I’m not kicking. I’ve had a pretty good time of it, by and large.”