Lablache wheezed unctuously.
"That's the spirit I like, John," he said, fingering his watch-chain with his fat hands. "To business. The place—er—yes." A moment's thought whilst the rancher waited with impatience. "Ah, I know. That implement shed on your fifty-acre pasture. Excellent. There is a living room in it. You used to keep a man there. It is disused now. It will suit us admirably. We can use that room. And the time—"
"To-morrow, Lablache. It must be to-morrow. I could not wait longer," broke in the other, in a voice husky with eagerness and liquor. "After dark, when no one can see us going out to the shed. No one must know, Lablache, mind—no one. Jacky will not dream of what we are doing."
"Very well. To-morrow, then. At eleven o'clock at night, John. And as you say in the meantime—mum."
Lablache was pleased with the rancher's suggestion. It quite fell in with his own ideas. Everything must be done quickly now. He must get away from Foss River without delay.
"Yes—yes. Mum's the word." "Poker" John indicated his approval with an upward leer as Lablache rose from his chair, and a grotesque pursing of his lips and his forefinger at the side of his nose. Then he, too, struggled to his feet, and, with unsteady hand, poured out two stiff "horns" of whisky.
He held one out to the money-lender and took the other himself.
"I drink to the game," he said haltingly. "May—fortune come my way."
Lablache nodded comprehensively and slowly raised his glass.
"Fortune is yours anyhow. Therefore I trust that I win the game."