"Know him well?"
"Very. We're in the same class. We're rooming together next year."
Blodgett grunted and walked on, mopping his puffy face with a shiny blue handkerchief. George wondered if he had displeased Blodgett by going with Goodhue. He decided he hadn't, for the picturesquely dressed man stopped oftener after that, chatting quite familiarly.
Whatever one thought of Blodgett's appearance and manner, one admired him. George hadn't been in the Street a week before he realized that the house of Blodgett and Sinclair was one of the most powerful in America, with numerous ramifications to foreign countries. There was no phase of finance it didn't touch; and, as far as George could see, it was all Josiah Blodgett, who had come to New York from the West, by way of Chicago. In those offices Sinclair was scarcely more than a name in gold on various doors. Once or twice, during the summer, indeed, George saw the partner chatting in a bored way with Blodgett. His voice was high and affected, like Wandel's, and he had a house in Newport. According to office gossip he had little money interest in the firm, lending the prestige of his name for what Blodgett thought it was worth. As he watched the fat, hard worker chatting with the butterfly man, George suddenly realized that Blodgett might want a house in Newport, too. Was it because he was Richard Goodhue's room-mate that Blodgett stopped him in the hall one day, grinning with good nature?
"If I were a cub," he puffed, "I'd buy this very morning all the Katydid I could, and sell at eighty-nine."
George whistled.
"I knew something was due to happen to Katydid, but I didn't expect anything like that."
"How did you know?" Blodgett demanded.
He shot questions until he had got the story of George's close observation and night drudgery.
"Glad to see Mundy hasn't dropped you out the window yet," he grinned. "Maybe you'll get along. Glad for Mr. Alston's sake. See here, if I were a cub, and knew as much about Katydid as you do, I wouldn't hesitate to borrow a few cents from the boss."