“Thanks! I shall.”
“Oh!” the prize ring magnate sighed in farewell, “my poor Idealist, what a lot of useless trouble you make for yourself and others!”
XII
Brainard carefully put out all the lights on the lower floor and then mounted the stairs to the room above. There he found Farson smoking a cigarette before the open fire and staring straight before him, as if his mind was occupied with a novel set of ideas. At sight of Brainard a curious smile crossed his face, and he looked interrogatively at his employer.
“Well?” he murmured.
“They are a pretty pair of—I was going to say crooks. But I don’t think my friend Hollinger is exactly that—I hope not.”
“He used to have the reputation of being the squarest man in his profession—the very soul of honor in the fight business. That was what gave him his prestige with the politicians, until the district attorney got after him.”
“I can’t make him out!”
“It’s not hard to make her out,” Farson commented.
“Her methods are only too obvious!”