"It goes without saying that I'd like to be Master of Transportation, but not until you're through."
"Well, the old man has had another row with Colonel Jolson, and may not wait for his vacation to quit. I'm promised the vacancy."
"Then you have seen the Colonel?"
"No—but I have seen Mrs. Cortlandt. I felt I had a right to ask something from her in return for what I did for you. I know that sounds rotten, but you'll understand how it is. Colonel Jolson wants his brother-in-law, Blakeley, to have the place, but I'm entitled to it, and she has promised to fix it for me. If I go up, you go, too; that's why I was worried when this Clifford party appeared."
"There IS something, I suppose, I ought to tell you, although it doesn't amount to much. I was mixed up in a scrape the night I left New York. A plain-clothes man happened to get his head under a falling bottle and nearly died from the effects."
"What was the trouble?"
"It really wasn't the least bit of trouble, it was fatally easy. We were out on a grape carnival, six of us. It was an anti-prohibition festival, and he horned in."
"There is nothing else?"
"Nothing."
"Well, this Clifford party is stopping at the Hotel Central. Better look him over."