“I don’t know’s it’s particularly important to you,” he answered. “That’s what I came down for––to see. I was directed––back a day or two I was told that maybe if I looked you up you’d have some opening for me, down here. I was told you were looking for a––a good heavyweight fighter!”
Bobby Ogden threw back his head to laugh. And instead he just sat there with his mouth wide open, waiting. He felt sure that there was a better moment coming. Hogarty fiddled with the dominoes and seemed to be considering that information with due deliberation and from every angle.
“I see,” he murmured at last. “Surely. Quite right––quite right! And I may, I believe, safely assure you that I have several fine openings in the establishment for young men––for just the right sort of young men, of course. May I––er––inquire if you wish employment by the––er––week, or just in your spare time, to put it so?”
The question was icily sarcastic. Denny’s answer came sharp upon its heels. His voice was just as measured, just as inflectionless as Hogarty’s had been.
“If you hire them here by the week,” he said, “or for their spare time, I––I reckon I’ve come to the wrong establishment. I was only asking you for a chance to show you whether I was any good or not. I was told you’d be just as interested to find out as I was myself. Maybe––maybe I’ve made a bad mistake!”
Bobby Ogden was sorry he had waited to laugh. There was a hardness in the big-shouldered figure’s words that he did not like; a directly simple, unmistakable rebuke for the sneer concealed in Hogarty’s 177 question that could not be misinterpreted. And something utterly bad flared up in the lean-faced black-clad proprietor’s eyes––something of enmity that seemed to Ogden all out of proportion with the provocation. All the smooth suavity disappeared from his speech just as chalk marks are wiped out by a wet sponge. And Hogarty came swiftly to his feet.
“Maybe you were––maybe you did make a bad mistake!” he rasped out in a dead, colorless monotone that scarcely moved his lips. “But no man ever came into this place yet, and went out again to say he didn’t get his chance. I know a few specimens who make a profession of pleading that. They’re quitters––and they assay a streak of yellow that isn’t pay dirt!”
His voice dropped in register. It just missed being hoarse. With a rapidity that was almost bewildering he began to give orders to the two boys who were still phlegmatically waxing the floor. And the English-professor intonation was gone entirely.
“You, Joe!” he called, “get out the rods; set ’em up and rope her off! Legs, you chase out and find Sutton, if he’s not in back. You’ll run into him at Sharp’s, most likely. Tell him to come a-running. Tell him a new one’s drifted in from the frontier––and thinks he needs to be shown. Move, you shrimp!”