The voice answered as the man rose: “Certainly. Any friend of Vickery’s—” Crashaw said:
“Mr. Winfield, you ought to know Mr. Floyd Eldon. Famous weighing-machine, shake hands with famous talking-machine.”
The two men shook hands because Crashaw asked them to. He left them with a hasty “So long!” and hurried to the elevator.
It is a curious contact, the hand-clasp of two hostile men. It has something of the ritual value of the grip that precedes a prize-fight to the finish.
Once Bret’s and Eldon’s hands were joined, it was not easy to sever them. There was a kind of insult in being the first to relinquish the pressure. They looked at each other stupidly, like two school-boys who have quarreled. Neither could say a harsh word or feel a kind one. They had either to fight or to laugh.
Eldon was more used than Bret to speaking quickly in an emergency. He ended what he would have called a “stage wait” by lifting his left hand to his jaw, rubbing it, and smiling.
“It’s some time since we met.”
“Nearly five years, I guess,” said Bret, and returned the compliment by rubbing his own jaw.
“We meet every few years,” said Eldon. “I believe it’s my turn to slug now.”