Francis shook his head in perplexity.
“So I shouldn’t ever forget him,” the Wolf went on. “And never a waking moment have I forgotten him.——Remember the Conmopolitan Railways Merger? Well, old R.H.M. double-crossed me in that deal. And it was some double-cross, believe me. But he was too cunning ever to let me get a come-back on him. So there his picture has hung, and here I’ve sat and waited. And now the time has come.”
“You mean?” Francis queried quietly.
“Just that,” Regan snarled. “I’ve waited and worked for this day, and the day has come. I’ve got the whelp where I want him at any rate.” He glanced up maliciously at the picture. “And if that don’t make the old gent turn in his grave....”
Francis rose to his feet and regarded his enemy curiously.
“No,” he said, as if in soliloquy, “it isn’t worth it.”
“What isn’t worth what?” the other demanded with swift suspicion.
“Beating you up,” was the cool answer. “I could kill you with my hands in five minutes. You’re no Wolf. You’re just mere yellow dog, the part of you that isn’t plain skunk. They told me to expect this of you; but I didn’t believe, and I came to see. They were right. You were all that they said. Well, I must get along out of this. It smells like a den of foxes. It stinks.”
He paused with his hand on the door knob and looked back. He had not succeeded in making Regan lose his temper.
“And what are you going to do about it?” the latter jeered.