"What a party! What a party he's had!" thought Joe Rix, and after all, there was cause for a celebration. Had not the little man in almost one stroke won the heart of the prettiest girl in The Corner, and also did he not probably have a working share in the richest of the diggings?
"I'm Joe Rix," he said.
"Joe Rix?" murmured Donnegan softly. "Then you're one of Lord Nick's men?"
"I was," said Joe Rix, "sort of attached to him, maybe."
Perhaps this pointed remark won the interest of Donnegan. He raised his eyes, and Joe Rix beheld the most unhappy face he had ever seen. "A bad hangover," he decided, "and that makes it bad for me!"
"Come in," said Donnegan in the same monotonous, lifeless voice.
Big George reluctantly, it seemed, withdrew to one side, and Rix was instantly in the room and drawing out a chair so that he could face Donnegan.
"I was," he proceeded "sort of tied up with Lord Nick. But"—and here he winked broadly—"it ain't much of a secret that Nick ain't altogether a lord any more. Nope. Seems he turned out sort of common, they say."
"What fool," murmured Donnegan, "has told you that? What ass had told you that Lord Nick is a common sort?"
It shocked Joe Rix, but being a diplomat he avoided friction by changing his tactics.