“I suppose you are not out here for your health?” Mr. O’Shaughnessy opined, genially.
“No,” said Mr. Wade, icily.
“What line ar-re you in?” Mr. O’Shaughnessy pursued.
“I fail to understand you,” said Mr. Wade, stiffly.
“What house are you thravelin’ for? What are you selling?” Mr. O’Shaughnessy explained.
That he, Mr. Livingstone Wade, should be taken for a traveling salesman!
“I am a banker,” said Mr. Wade. He felt it due to himself to say as much as that.
“Faro and that face of yours ar-re twins the world over,” said Mr. O’Shaughnessy, genially, closing one eye and looking intelligently at Hastings through the other. Then he cast the toothpick on the floor. “Have a cigar?” he said, hospitably, throwing a couple carelessly on the table as he rose to depart. “Drop in and see me if you get thirsty while you’re here. The palm garden. Two doors up. The house is good for a few yet.”
He stopped to joke with the head waitress a moment on his way out.
Richards, returning, decided that Mr. Wade was pretty well fagged. He had become monosyllabic.