Carey laughed long and loud. “Hennage” he said, “do you know I think I should grow to like you? By George, I think I should. If you should ever come to Los Angeles, look me up,” and he presented the gambler with his card.
Mr. Hennage smiled, tore the card into little bits and dropped them to the floor.
“Do I look like a tin-horn?” he queried.
A momentary frown crossed Carey's face; then he, too, smiled. He was finding it hard to take offense at the gambler's bluntness.
“I think you're a dead-game sport, Hennage” he said, and there was no doubt that he meant it. “But I shall not despair. You have brains. Some day, I feel assured, we shall sit down together like sensible men and do business.”
“And in the meantime” replied Mr. Hennage, raising an admonitory forefinger, “our motto is 'Keep off the grass.'”
“Oh, I won't walk on your darned old grass” Carey retorted. “I'll just step between it.”
They shook hands in friendly fashion, and Carey hurried away. Mr. Hennage stared after him.
“Sassy as a badger” he murmured. “I can't bluff that hombre. He'll go as far as he can, an' be ready to jump in the first chance he sees. Bob, my boy, you're up against it.”
Mr. Hennage's business in Bakersfield was now completed. He felt certain that a battle between Bob McGraw and T. Morgan Carey was inevitable, should Bob decide to remain in the background and send an ally out to fight for him. However, despite his horror of Bob's crime, the gambler unconsciously extended him his sympathy, and if there was to be a battle, either its commencement had been delayed or its duration prolonged by the little bluff which he had just worked on T. Morgan Carey, and that was all Mr. Hennage was striving for.