To gain time Winthrop stepped into the driver's seat. He looked at Mr. Schwab steadily.
"There was no other gentleman," he said. "Do you mean my chauffeur?" Mr. Schwab gave an appreciative chuckle.
"No, I don't mean your chauffeur," he mimicked. "I mean," he declared theatrically in his best police-court manner, "the man who to-day is hoping to beat Tammany, Ernest Peabody!"
Winthrop stared at the youth insolently.
"I don't understand you," he said.
"Oh, of course not!" jeered "Izzy" Schwab. He moved excitedly from foot to foot. "Then who WAS the other man," he demanded, "the man who ran away?"
Winthrop felt the blood rise to his face. That Miss Forbes should hear this rat of a man, sneering at the one she was to marry, made him hate Peabody. But he answered easily:
"No one ran away. I told my chauffeur to go and call up an ambulance. That was the man you saw."
As when "leading on" a witness to commit himself, Mr. Schwab smiled sympathetically.
"And he hasn't got back yet," he purred, "has he?"