“It’s a dull yarn,” said Jimmy apologetically. “I’ve been boring you. By the way, Dreever asked me to square up with you for that game, in case he shouldn’t be back. Here you are.”
He held out an empty hand.
“Got it?”
“What are you going to do?” demanded Hargate.
“What am I going to do?” queried Jimmy.
“You know what I mean. If you’ll keep your mouth shut, and stand in, it’s halves. Is that what you’re after?”
Jimmy was delighted. He knew that by rights the proposal should have brought him from his seat, with stern, set face, to wreak vengeance for the insult, but on such occasions he was apt to ignore the conventions. His impulse, when he met a man whose code of behaviour was not the ordinary code, was to chat with him and to extract his point of view. He felt as little animus against Hargate as he had felt against Spike on the occasion of their first meeting.
“Do you make much at this sort of game?” he asked.
Hargate was relieved. This was business-like.
“Pots,” he said, with some enthusiasm—“pots I tell you, if you’ll stand in——”