“Oh, I was just wonderin’. I had a notion he might be in trainin’ for a judgeship, he was so high and mighty. Ho! ho! He’s got talent, that boy has. Nobody but a born genius could have made as many mistakes in one name as he did when he undertook to spell Elisha. Well, sir, I’m much obliged to you. Good day.”
The Central Club is a ponderous institution occupying a becomingly gorgeous building on the Avenue. The captain found his way to its door without much trouble. A brass-buttoned attendant answered his ring and superciliously inquired his business. Captain Elisha, not being greatly in awe of either buttons or brief authority, calmly hailed the attendant as “Gen’ral” and informed him that he was there to see Mr. Sylvester, if the latter was “on deck anywheres.”
“Tell him it’s Cap’n Warren, Major,” he added cheerfully; “he’s expectin’ me.”
The attendant brusquely ushered the visitor into a leather-upholstered reception room and left him. The captain amused himself by looking at the prints and framed letters and autographs on the walls. Then a round, red, pleasant-faced man entered.
“Pardon me,” he said, “is this Captain Warren?”
“Yes, sir,” was the reply. “That’s my name. This is Mr. Sylvester, ain’t it? Glad to know you, sir.”
“Thanks. Sorry to have made you travel way up here, Captain. I waited until twelve-thirty, but as you didn’t come then, I gave you up. Hope I haven’t inconvenienced you.”
“No, no. Not a mite. Might just as well be here as anywhere. Don’t think another thing about it.”
“Have you lunched, Captain Warren?”
“No, come to think of it, I ain’t. I’ve been kind of busy this forenoon, and a little thing like dinner—luncheon, I mean—slipped my mind. Though ’tain’t often I have those slips, I’m free to say. Ho! ho! Abbie—she’s my second cousin, my housekeeper—says I’m an unsartin critter, but there’s two things about me she can always count on, one’s that my clothes have always got a button loose somewheres, and t’other’s my appetite.”