"Why?" Lambert asked, uneasily. "I don't quite see what you're up to. No more battles of the ink pots!"
"Please get out, Lambert; but maybe you'd better hang about the office. I think Dicky's gone for the night. Wait in his room."
"All right," Lambert agreed.
George opened the door, and, as Lambert went through reluctantly, beckoned the clerk.
"Send Mr. Dalrymple in, Carson."
He stood behind his desk, facing the open door. Almost immediately the doorway was blocked by Dalrymple. George stared, trying to value the alteration in the man. The weak, rather handsome face was bold and contemptuous. Clearly he had come here for blows of his own choosing, and had just now borrowed courage from some illicit bar, but he had taken only enough, George gathered, to make him assured and not too calculating. He was clothed as if he had returned from an affair, with a flower in his buttonhole, and a top hat held in the hand with his stick and gloves.
"Come in!"
Dalrymple closed the door and advanced, smiling.
Not for a moment did George's glance leave the other. He felt taut, hard to the point of brittleness.
"It's fortunate you've come," he said, quietly. "I've just been trying to get hold of you."