“Heard Archie call him Banker, I think,” answered one of the great man’s hangers-on.
Later, Banneker having changed, sat in an angled window of the clubhouse, waiting for his host, who had returned from the stables. A group of members entering the room, and concealed from him by an L, approached the fireplace talking briskly.
“Dick says the feller’s a reporter,” declared one of them, a middle-aged man named Kirke. “Says he saw him tryin’ to interview somebody on the Street, one day.”
“Well, I don’t believe it,” announced an elderly member. “This chap of Densmore’s looks like a gentleman and dresses like one. I don’t believe he’s a reporter. And he rides like a devil.”
“I say there’s ridin’ and ridin’,” proclaimed Kirke. “Some fellers ride like jockeys; some fellers ride like cowboys; some fellers ride like gentlemen. I say this reporter feller don’t ride like a gentleman.”
“Oh, slush!” said another discourteously. “What is riding like a gentleman?”
Kirke reverted to the set argument of his type. “I’ll betcha a hundred he don’t!”
“Who’s to settle such a bet?”
“Leave it to Maitland,” said somebody.
“I’ll leave it to Archie Densmore if you like,” offered the bettor belligerently.