"No wonder," said he. "You've got a belt of felt about your waist that only a champion could wear. You must have kept your feet under the table many and many a bitter hour to win it."
"Now, confound it," said the pudgy one, exasperated, "I don't eat so much."
"Maybe not." Scanlon looked his disbelief. "But the pangs of hunger and you are not very intimate. Your most active moments are spent in a limousine or a club window." He winked humorously at Ashton-Kirk. "I'll say nothing against the limousine; it's a fine invention; but legs were made to walk on. And if you think the club window thing will ever reduce the size of your collar, you're bound to be a disappointed man."
"But I ride every day in the park," said Dennison, "and I go to the country club three times a week for my golf."
"Riding is a grand exercise—for the horse," commented the athlete. "And the people who get the most out of a golf course are paid for what they do."
"Well, a fellow's social life must be seen to," said the defective one, a fat white hand stroking an equally fat, but blue, jowl. "He's got to have a bit to eat and drink, and a trifle of leisure to look things over."
A telephone bell rang in another room, and a squeaky voice was heard answering the call.
"If you care to come in every day and work, all right," said Scanlon, carelessly, for he understood the case perfectly. "But the eating and drinking must scale down to what I think is right."
Dennison appealed to Ashton-Kirk.
"The last time he had me here, he made me toil like a day laborer, and feed like his helper," said he, gloomily. "But I've got to stand it, confound the luck. I'm too short in the neck to carry weight and stand excitement. That thing fairly floored me when I heard it this morning."