"Is there any way in which he ain't?"
"You don't like him, do you?"
"No, I don't," declared "Fingerless" Fraser stoutly, "and what's more I'm glad I don't like him. Because if I liked him, I'd associate with him, and I hate him."
"What's the matter?"
"Well, I like silence and quietude—I'm a fool about my quiet—but Clyde—" he paused, as if in search for suitable expression. "Well, whenever I try to say anything he interrupts me." After another pause he went on: "He's dead sore on this place, too, and whines around like a litter of pups. He says he was misled into coming up here, and has a hunch he's going to lose his bank-roll."
"Last night's episode frightened him, I dare say."
"Yes. Ever since he got that wallop on the burr in Seattle a guinea pig could lick him hand to hand. You'd think that ten thou' he put up was all the wealth of the Inkers."
"The wealth of what?"
"Inkers! That's a tribe of rich Mexicans. However, I suppose I'd hang to my coin the same way he does if I had a mayonnaise head like his. He's an awful shine as a business-man."
"So he's homesick, eh?"