"I ain't asked him yet."
"Do it to-night."
O'Malley walked to the dimly lighted back-room, hung with racing prints and framed lithographs advertising a wide variety of whiskeys. He drew a wicker-bottomed chair to a stained round table, and sat down.
The proprietor brought him a glass and a syphon of seltzer—the boss's only drink—and disappeared. The bar-keeper came with a handful of black cigars for which O'Malley paid with a bill, refusing the change, and also disappeared. Then the door of communication was shut and guarded, admission being denied to all persons not properly accredited, and the quiet, thin man in the light gray suit, now sipping his seltzer, now reflectively adjusting his bright blue tie, which bore a brilliant diamond pin, and always slowly smoking, began his conference with such callers as he had granted appointments.
They came in force—alone and in groups—all manner of men by the main entrance and a woman or two ushered through a side door. This one was promised a reward for duty to be done, that one assigned to the performance of a delicate piece of diplomacy. Now and then a short, sharp, cold reprimand for negligence or failure sent away a caller whipped, penitent, trembling; and here and there release was promised for a wayward son sent to "The Island," or a line of credit written for use at a grocer's shop.
Wesley Dyker came early. He paused at the bar for a drink to stiffen his courage, lingered a little longer until a predecessor had been dismissed, and then, his lids lowered, entered, alone, with a succinct account of Rose's attempt to play a double game.
When he had finished the narrative, O'Malley sat for a while gazing unconcernedly at the blackened ceiling, and smoking quietly.
"Well?" he said at last, and turned the sharp thrust of his gaze upon his caller.
Dyker, who was sitting opposite and who had been served with a drink of whiskey, tossed off the liquor in order to gain time to muster an answer for this unexpected query.
"Well," he at length replied, annoyed at thus being put into a position where he must make his proposition in the form of a request, "are you going to stand for that sort of thing?"