"Not with me—a thing like that never passes with me," Drake answered, as they crossed the street and entered at the side door of the hotel.
They found some unoccupied chairs in a quiet part of the big office. The clerks behind the counter were busy assigning rooms to a throng of passengers from an incoming train. A dozen negro porters and bell-boys were rushing to and fro. The elevators were busy. The tiled floor resounded with the scurrying of active feet. Saunders saw the mountaineer watching the scene with the lack-luster stare he had caught in his eyes a few minutes before.
"You said you wanted to ask me something about your place," Drake suddenly bethought himself to say.
"Yes, it is like this. You know my manager, Hobson, of course?"
"Yes, pretty well," Drake made reply, slowly. "That is, as well as any of us mountain men do. He never has been much of a chap to mix with other folks. To tell you the truth, most of us think he is stuck up. Well, I reckon he has a right to be. He gets darn good wages. Nobody knows exactly what he makes, but it is reported that you give 'im fifteen hundred a year. He has saved most of it, and has turned his pile over till there isn't any telling how much the feller is worth."
"Yes, I am paying him fifteen hundred," Saunders said, lowering his voice into one of confidential disclosure. "I want to talk to you about him, and I know you will help me if you can. He has, as you say, laid up money, and he has recently established a warehouse business at Ridgeville. For the last month he has scarcely been at my plantation half a dozen times."
"I noticed that," Drake said, "but he told me that he had it fixed so that he could be at both places often enough to keep things in shape. He is a good business man, and I reckon he will do what he contracts."
"But I am not at all satisfied as it is," Saunders answered. "I am thinking of disposing of my bank interest and settling down up there for good, and I'd like to have a manager with whom I can be in touch every day. I am interested in farming myself, and I don't want my manager to have too many irons in the fire. The trouble with Hobson is that he is now giving his best thought and energy to his own business."
"I see," Drake said. "Well, that's accordin' to human nature, I reckon. They say Hobson speculates in grain an' cotton, an' when a feller gets to playin' a game as excitin' as that it is hard for 'im to get down to humdrum matters."
Saunders linked his hands across his knee, and looked down at the floor for a moment in silence. He seemed to be trying to formulate something more difficult to express than what he had already touched upon.