From a shelf he took a stone jar and a brace of pipes, with bowls of baked clay and long reed stems. The pipes were filled with tobacco from the jar and lighted; then they sat down at the table facing each other. Campe smoked quietly, tilted back in his chair, his eyes upon the floor. Scanlon examined him keenly, with the manner of a man who had something of a job before him, and meant to go about it as carefully as he could.
“It was pretty close to three weeks ago that I first came here,” said he. “And in those three weeks I’ve had a sort of miscellaneous time.”
“I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself,” spoke Campe. “I’m afraid I’ve been rather lacking in many ways, but things are in such shape with me just now that——”
Here Bat stopped him with a wave of the hand.
“The shape that things are in with you just now,” said the big man, “is what this talk is going to be about. You couldn’t have brought the thing forward at a better moment.”
Campe’s fingers tapped nervously upon the edge of the table; Scanlon blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling and watched it curl and shift formlessly.
“You’ve never told me why you asked me here,” said the big man. “And I never asked. But just the same I dropped to the facts in the first couple of days.”
Campe placed his pipe upon the table, and stared at the speaker with frightened eyes.
“Do you mean——” he began.
“No,” said Bat, interrupting him, “I don’t mean that. What the inside of this affair of yours is—the real reason for it all—I don’t know. But in the outside I am pretty well informed. You are cooped up here with enemies all about you. Now at a single glance, a fellow wouldn’t say they were a very dangerous lot; but,” wrinkling his forehead, “I’ve seen them work a little, and I’ll say for them that they’ve got stuff I can’t hit; and from all appearances, it’s the same way with you.”