"Yes. What are you going to do?"
"Look in at the Gridiron, and pass the time of day with young Alec." Kars laughed shortly. Then he turned, and his purpose was shining in his eyes. "Alec's Jessie's brother—and I've got to save that kid from himself."
CHAPTER XIX
AT THE GRIDIRON
Kars was early abroad. He left his apartment on the first floor of the same apartment house which furnished Bill Brudenell with his less palatial quarters, and sauntered down the main street in the direction of the Gridiron.
His mood was by no means a happy one. He realized only too surely that a man bent upon an errand such as he was stood at something more than a disadvantage. His life was made up of the study of the life about him. His understanding was of the cruder side of things. But now, when action, when simple force of character were his chief assets, he was called upon, or he had called upon himself, to undertake the difficult task of making a youth, big, strong, hot-headed, mad with the newly tasted joy of living, detach himself from his new life.
Nor was he without qualms when he passed the portals of the hotel, which ranked second only in ill-fame to Pap Shaunbaum's.
If the Gridiron possessed less ill-fame than its contemporary it was not because its proprietor was any less a "hold-up" than Pap. It was simply that his methods were governed by a certain circumspection. He cloaked his misdoings under a display of earnest endeavor in the better direction. For instance, every room displayed a printed set of regulations against anything and everything calculated to offend the customer of moral scruples—if such an one could be discovered in Leaping Horse. Dan McCrae enforced just as many of these regulations as suited him. And, somehow, for all he had drawn them up himself, none of them ever seemed to suit him. But they had their effect on his business. It became the fashion of the men of greater substance to make it a headquarters. And it was his boast that more wealth passed in and out of his doors than those of any house in Leaping Horse, except the bank.
Dan only desired such custom. He possessed a hundred and one pleasant wiles for the loosening of the bank rolls of such custom. No man ever left his establishment after a brief stay without considerably less bulging pockets.