It was Thompson's turn to enjoy himself. He could not refrain from following up this new vein.
"Your old friends are liberal-minded, Senator. But your new friends, the great American people, are a little inclined to be narrow in matters of private morality."
Thompson's follow-up attack was a mistake. It gave Merriam time to think and decide upon his course.
"I was not at Reiberg's last night," he said, recovering his loftiness and adding coldness thereto. "Nor anywhere else. I spent the night in this hotel."
Thompson stared. For a moment it almost seemed that his jaw would fall and his precious cigar drop out. But he recovered himself with a sneer.
"You did, did you? In the company of your wife, I suppose! And that thing about your head is really to keep you from catching cold and not to keep your head from splitting open with the headache? You're pretty fresh this morning, considering. I hand it to you there. But"--his rising anger got the better of his unnatural affectation of suavity, which he had maintained up to the limit of his endurance--"but that lie won't go! You don't know what you did last night. You were stewed right. You told every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and Mary and Jane at the dance hall that you were Senator Norman. You fool!"
"After that," said Merriam, playing his part regally, or, let us say, senatorially, "I can only suggest to you that behind you is a door which I wish you would make use of as soon as possible."
Thompson seemed decidedly nonplused at this. The real Norman had always been amenable to threats and on the whole patient under abuse.
"Do you mean," he burst out, "that I'm not to be your manager? You turn me down cold?"
At this juncture there came a quick, light knock at the door to which Merriam had just referred so grandly.