Plank laughed, and looked over several sheets of the typewritten matter on the desk beside him.
“Suppose I meet Quarrier?” he said.
“All right. Did he suggest a date?”
“At four, this afternoon.”
“Do you think you had better go?”
“I think it might do no harm,” said Plank.
“Amen!” observed Siward, laughing, and touched the electric button for the early tea, which Plank adored at any hour.
For a while they dropped business and discussed their tea, chatting very comfortably together. Long ago Siward had found out something of the mental breadth of the man beside him, and that he was worth listening to as well as talking to. For Plank had formed opinions upon a great many subjects; and whatever culture he possessed was from sheer desire for self-cultivation.
“You know, Siward,” he was accustomed to say with a smile, “you inherit what I am qualifying myself to transmit.”
“It will be all one in a thousand years,” was Siward's usual rejoinder.