“Why do you go, sir?” asked Puma innocently. No doubt, being all heart and art, he did not comprehend that brokers can not exist on cigars alone.
His commission had gone glimmering. Sharrow, evidently foreseeing something of that sort, had sent him out with Puma to meet Skidder and rid the office of the dubious affair.
This Jim understood, and yet he was not particularly pleased to be exploited by this bland pair who had come suddenly to an understanding under his very nose––the understanding of two petty, dickering, crossroad traders, which coolly excluded any possibility both of his services and of his commission.
“No; only a kike lawyer is required now,” he said to himself, as he crossed the street and entered Central Park. “I’ve been properly trimmed by a perfumed wop and a squinting yap,” he thought with intense amusement. “But we’re well clear of them for good.”
The park was wintry and unattractive. Few pedestrians were abroad, but motors sparkled along distant drives in the sunshine.
Presently his way ran parallel to one of these drives. And he had been walking only a little while when a limousine veered in, slowing down abreast of him, and he saw a white-gloved hand tapping the pane.
He felt himself turning red as he went up, hat in hand, to open the door and speak to the girl inside.