“You explain how we can not lose out? You mention the option?”
Skidder cast aside his white tie and tried another, constructed on the butterfly plan.
“I put the whole thing up to him,” he said. “No use stalling with Alonzo D. Pawling. I know him too well. So I let out straight from the shoulder, and he knows the scheme we’ve got in mind and he knows we want his money in it. That’s how it stands to-night.”
Puma nodded and softly joined his over-manicured finger-tips:
“We give him a good time,” he said. “We give him a little dinner like there never was in New York. Yes?”
“You betcha.”
“Barclay is a devil. You think she please him?”
“Alonzo D. Pawling is some bird himself,” remarked Skidder, picking up his hat and turning to Puma, who rose with lithe briskness, put on his hat, and began to pull at his white gloves.
They went down to the street, where Puma’s car was waiting.
“I stop at the office a moment,” he said, as they entered 223 the limousine. “You need not get out, Elmer.”