“Mine is lighted, thank you, Baird,” said Loring, and through blue circles of smoke he watched Radlett light his own cigar.
“I had almost forgotten what a stocky old brute Baird was,” he mused. “I do not think, though, that I could ever forget that dear old face. Of all the faces that I ever knew his is the homeliest, and the kindest! If he poked that long jaw of his out at me, and looked at me with those honest eyes, he might tell me that black was white, and I should fight the man who said that it was not true.”
Radlett also utilized those first moments of silence brought about by a good cigar, an old friend, and a comfortable chair, to make a few observations of his own.
“In five years, Steve has changed a great deal,” he thought. “Five years of failure, and drifting, such as I judge these to have been, leave their mark on any man, definitely and indefinitely. Imagine Loring, the fastidious, in those clothes five years ago! And then the old frank manner has become a bit hesitant. He seems always on the defensive. Poor old chap, he must have had some pretty hard blows. The old light in his eyes is no longer there; but after all he has that same quality of winning appeal, of humor and of latent strength, which nothing can obliterate, which always has made and always will make every one who knows him hope for the best, and pardon the worst.” At the conclusion of his reflections, Baird’s eyes were damp.
Stephen smoked slowly, as one would sip a rare old wine. Then, taking the cigar from his mouth, he held it before his eyes, twirling the label slowly around, and looking at it appreciatively.
“It is eleven months since I smoked a good cigar, Baird; perhaps you can guess how this one tastes to me,” said Loring softly, almost as if talking to himself. Then he relapsed again into silence.
Radlett puffed vigorously on his cigar, then said: “Steve, it is your own fault that you are not smoking good cigars all the time.”
“Perhaps it is,” answered Loring; “but the fact remains, and eleven months is a long time out of one’s life to lose such happiness.”
“The last time that I heard of you, you were in Chicago,” remarked Radlett. “Some one told me that you had a good position there. What happened to you?”
“Fired,” was the laconic answer.