“Yes,” her tone became confidential. “What wine do you want served?—are the gentlemen heavy drinkers?”
“No, but they’ll take all you give them.”
He dropped the receiver, smiling. How eager he used to be to do all those small errands! the night of their house-warming—he drank too much. That Swede was a nice man. The den on the top floor was hung now with maps of suburban towns, new fields for speculation; he spent many evenings poring over them. Somehow his business mind always worked well up there in that room where a man was murdered by his wife.
The stenographer put a paper before him. He started, came back to reality; it was a bill of sale and very satisfactory.
“I’ll close the deal tonight.”
Then he commenced searching in an old desk for some papers he wanted, and came across a sealed envelope; on it was written “Boodle.”
Boodle? What did it mean? He broke the seal and took out three five-dollar bills.
Tom Dillon! He had quite forgotten him, but he had a vague idea that he owned a Taxi Company, and was strong in local politics.
He put back the fifteen dollars, resealed the envelope, and wrote on it, “The foundation of the Garrison fortune.” He would give the story to his publicity man—how an impoverished son of wealth started in life by earning fifteen dollars as a chauffeur. Tom Dillon! was the real thing. What was the real thing? Had he found it? or was he chasing phantoms? He had that feeling sometimes, in his most successful moments; it was a queer sensation, as if he had caught a thing of vapor that melted out of hand and challenged him again from far off—and again that shadow race!
He thought often of Tom Dillon after that, and one election night he saw him in the crowd, with a fine young fellow, the image of his father; they were laughing and nudging each other like two boy friends. Floyd shook off a feeling of loneliness and got out of their way.