“The Stanley place,” said Weems. “The finest camp on the whole Lake. I bought it furnished and it’s some furniture believe me. There’s a grand piano—that would please you—and pictures that are worth thousands, one of ’em by some one named Constable. Ever hear of him?”
“Yes,” Trent grunted, “I have. Fancy you with a Constable and a grand piano when you don’t know one school of painting from another and think the phonograph the only instrument worth listening to!”
“I earned it,” Weems said, a little huffily. “Why don’t you make money instead of getting mad because I do?”
“Because I haven’t your ability, I suppose,” Trent admitted. “It’s a gift and the gods forgot me.”
“Some of the boys used to look down on me,” said Weems, “but all I ask is ‘where is little Horace to-day?’ This money making game is the only thing that counts, believe me. Up in Hanover I wasn’t one, two, three, compared with you. Your father was well off and mine hadn’t a nickel. You graduated magna cum laude and I had to work like a horse to slide by. You were popular because you made the football team and could sing and play.” Weems paused reflectively, “I never did hear any one who could mimic like you. You should have taken it up and gone into vaudeville. How much do you make a week?”
“Forty—with luck.”
“I give that to my chauffeur and I’m not rich yet. But I shall be. I’m out to be as rich as that fellow over there.”
He pointed to a rather high colored extremely well dressed man about town to whom the waiters were paying extreme deference.
“That’s Conington Warren,” Weems said with admiration in his voice, “he’s worth a million per annum.”
Anthony Trent turned to look at him. There was no doubt that Conington Warren was a personage. Just now he was engaged in an argument with the head waiter concerning Château Y’Quem. Trent noticed his gesture of dismissal when he had finished. It was an imperious wave of his hand. It was his final remark as it were.