"Please step in here, Colonel."
Nelson recoiled. "No, thank you!" he said, curtly.
"Briskow and I are amateur bankers; there is a matter upon which we need your advice."
"Indeed? Finding it isn't as easy to run a bank as a drilling rig? He said you were out, otherwise—"
"Will you come in?"
Stiffly, reluctantly, as if impelled by some force outside of himself,
Nelson stepped within, but he ignored the chair that was proffered him.
Gray closed the door before saying: "The deception was mine, not Briskow's. You prefer to stand? Um-m—I appreciate your feeling of formality. I felt a bit ill at ease on the occasion of my first call here, when our positions were reversed—"
"If you got me here just to be nasty—"
"By no means. Nevertheless, it gratifies my vanity to remind you that you considered me a braggart, a bluffer, whereas—"
"I haven't changed my opinion."