Weems made a gesture of despair and resignation.
“That’s why you’ll always be poor. That’s why you’ll never have a grand piano and a Constable and a swell place up in Maine.”
Anthony Trent looked at him and smiled.
“There may be other ways,” he said slowly.
“You try ’em,” Weems retorted crossly. “Here you are almost thirty years old, highly educated, prep school and college and you make a week what I give my chauffeur.”
“I think I will,” Trent answered.
Weems attacked his salad angrily. If only Trent had been what he termed aggressive, an introduction could easily have been effected. Then Weems would have seen to it that he and Warren left the restaurant together. Some one would be bound to see them. Then, for Weems had an expansive fancy, it would be rumored that he, Horace Weems, who cleaned up on Steel, was friendly with the great Conington Warren. It might lead to anything!
“Well,” he commented, “I’d rather be little Horace Weems, who can’t tell a phonograph from a grand piano than Mr. Anthony Trent, who makes with luck two thousand a year.”
“I’m in bad company to-day,” replied Trent. “First Crosbeigh and now you tempting me. You know very well I haven’t that magic money making ability you have. My father hadn’t it or he would have left money when he died and not debts.”
“Magic!” Weems snorted. “Common sense, that’s what it is.”