United States or Montserrat ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I reckon I'll have to lick this town and lick it good before it learns to be friendly." A hand fell on his arm. He turned to face Cressey. "You're the feller that bossed the wreck out there in the desert, aren't you? You're lessee Banneker." "I am." The tone was curt. "Awfully sorry I didn't spot you at once." Cressey's genuineness was a sufficient apology. "I'm a little stuffy to-day.
From another member of the world which had inherited or captured Sherry's as part of the spoils of life, the question might have been offensive. But Banneker genuinely liked Cressey. "Not exactly," he returned lightly. "Do I give that unfortunate impression?" "You give very much the impression of owning old Jules or he does and having a proprietary share in the new head waiter. Are you here much?"
He spoke crudely, for the apparition of the girl was quite touching in its youth, and delight, and candor of expression, whereas he had read into Marrineal's long, handsome, and blandly mature face a touch of the satyr. He resented the association. "No; it isn't," replied Cressey promptly. "If it is, he's in the wrong pew. Miss Raleigh is straight as they make 'em, from all I hear."
If she could in turn help Banneker to recognition, part of her debt would be paid. As for him, he was interested in, but not greatly expectant of, the Gaines invitation. Still, if he were cast adrift from The Ledger because of activity in the coming police inquiry, there was a possible port in the magazine world. Meantime there pressed the question of a home. Cressey ought to afford help on that.
And a dinner-jacket suit. Two business suits, a light and a dark. You won't need a morning coat, I expect, for a while. Anyway, we've got to save somethin' out for shirts and boots, haven't we?" "I haven't the money with me" remarked Banneker, his innocent mind on the cash-with-order policy of Sears-Roebuck. "Now, see here," said Cressey, good-humoredly, yet with an effect of authority.
Lacking knowledge, his instinct could find no starting-point; he was bewildered in vision and in mind. Just off the corner of the quietest of the Forties, he met a group of four young men, walking compactly by twos. The one nearest him in the second line was Herbert Cressey. His heavy and rather dull eye seemed to meet Banneker's as they came abreast.
Cressey had doubted that one could be at the same time a successful journalist and a gentleman; Horace Vanney had deemed individuality inconsistent with newspaper writing; Tommy Burt and other jejune pessimists of the craft had declared genuine honesty incompatible with the higher and more authoritative phases of the profession.
The one more having been disposed of: "What is it you want?" inquired Cressey, when they were settled in the taxi which was waiting at the club door for them. "Well, what do I want? You tell me." "How far do you want to go? Will five hundred be too much?" "No." Cressey lost himself in mental calculations out of which he presently delivered himself to this effect: "Evening clothes, of course.
"In the West, Bertie?" she inquired of Cressey. "You were in that big wreck there, weren't you?" "Devil of a wreck," said Cressey uneasily. You never could tell what Esther might know or might not say. "Ask him over here," directed that young lady blandly, "for coffee and liqueurs." "Oh, I say!" protested one of the men. "Nobody knows anything about him "
One glance at him told Cressey that Banneker did indeed "know something" of the mysterious disappearance which had so exercised a legion of busy tongues in New York; how much that something might be, he preserved for future and private speculation, based on the astounding perception that Banneker was in real pain of soul.
Word Of The Day