“No, I won’t!” he mumbled. “What would be the use of that? The people who paid it in wouldn’t get it. Besides, if those two scoundrels have a thousand apiece, why shouldn’t I? And I need cash. This business of having a big house, with servants and everything else, but no money, isn’t the kind of thing I like. I suppose there’ll be hail Columbia when it comes time to pay these servants, to say nothing of the butcher and groceryman and all the rest of the tradesmen.”
He was about to pour himself out another glass of champagne, but changed his mind and took some water from the carafe instead. It looked as if he were trying to sober up.
“Well, I’ll go to bed,” he exclaimed, after another pause, during which he seemed to be trying to collect his thoughts in some sort of orderly array. “And, in the morning, I’ll begin to have this affair brought to a focus. I’m tired of going on this way for nothing at all, just to please other people.”
He got up from his chair, and made his way out of the room with much better grace than had the other two men.
In a moment or two a man in livery, who seemed to have been waiting somewhere close by until the convivial trio should disappear, came into the room and began to clear away the remnants of the feast, as well as the glasses and other paraphernalia that spoke of a carouse.
He had not proceeded far in his work when another man, dressed just like him, also stole into the room and silently assisted the first.
When they had taken everything out of sight, including the tablecloth, leaving the handsome mahogany table, with its highly polished surface, glittering in the light of the chandelier, one of the men solemnly addressed the other:
“What do you think of it, Dobbs?”
“Don’t know! How does it strike you, Kelly?”
“I’ll tell you better at the end of the month.”