“Mr. Steele, I was amazed to find on my return from New York that you had absented yourself without permission from your duties,” began Mr. Blair, in a sincere more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said John airily. “I was general manager pro tem., you see, and a general manager may do what he pleases. But I was division superintendent also, so I asked the general manager for an hour or two off, and permission was granted me.”
“As you know, Mr. Steele, I am the most forbearing of men, but such a tone as you have adopted will not do. As I told you over the telephone I was surprised at the flippant manner you thought fit to adopt, but I expected a satisfactory explanation when we met face to face.”
“If that is the case, sir, I shall be so sorry to disappoint you. The satisfactory explanation I beg to offer for my absence is that I was busily engaged in gambling.”
“Gambling!” cried Mr. Blair in astonishment; “this is shocking. It is my opinion that a man cannot be an efficient servant of a great railway and a speculator at the same time.”
“I quite agree with you, Mr. Blair, and we are two shining examples of the truth of your aphorism. You are the most inefficient railway servant I ever met, and at the same time the most successful gambler. I am an excellent railway man and the most idiotic speculator there is in the country at the present moment. What’s the use of wasting that sanctimonious ‘holier-than-thou’ look of yours? You know, and I know, that you don’t care a hang about my being away a day. What you want me here for is to gloat over me. You’ve got my three hundred thousand dollars as slick as any bunco man ever achieved a much smaller sum over a green farm hand from the country. I’m here, not to receive any censure or to make any apology, but so that you may enjoy the effects of my humiliation and defeat. I am the last person in the world to deprive another of innocent amusement. Here I am, therefore. I have just come out of the tail end of the threshing machine, and have brought the remnants for your inspection. What do you think of them?”
“I am exceedingly sorry to hear that you have been unfortunate in your financial transactions.”
“Of course you are. Thanks ever so much.”
“Did you succeed in raising twenty-one thousand on your Northern Pacific stock?”
“No, I have it with me yet. That N. P. stock sticks to me closer than any friend I have in town. You don’t want to buy it by any chance?”