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"I guess I took a superior air... A man who plays up his honesty is always nasty... I meant well most fools do!" Watson stared uncomprehendingly. "The best thing I can get this man Brauer to agree to is a compromise... He's eager for his pound of flesh." "What do you mean?"
He turned sharply toward his office. Young Brauer was just mounting the steps. "Well, what's new?" Brauer threw out, genially. "Not a thing in the world!" escaped Starratt. They went into the office together. Old Wetherbee was carrying his cash book out of the safe. The old man smiled. He was usually in good humor early in the morning. "Well, what's new?" he inquired, gayly.
"A terrible crash. And now the firm's reorganized; it's Hunter, Hunter & Brauer. Thorny told me about it. And Miss Sherman's married, and Miss Cottle's got consumption and has to live in Arizona, or somewhere. However, " she returned to the original theme, "Peter seems to be still enjoying life!
Fred did not wait for Brauer to come into the office he went and took him to lunch instead, where he could prod him away from Helen's sight and hearing. "I'm surprised at you, Brauer," Starratt broke out suddenly, once they were seated at Grover's and had given the girl their order. "Over what?" Brauer's face clouded craftily.
And in the end it was this feeling rising above the surface of his irritation which made him a bit ashamed of his attitude toward Helen's dinner party. After all, it would be the same a thousand years from now. A man couldn't have his cake and eat it, and a man like Brauer must live a dull sort of life. What could be the use of saving money if one forgot how to spend it in the drab process?
Instead, he stared up at the ceiling and puffed cigarette after cigarette until morning flooded the room... At eight o'clock he phoned down to have his breakfast sent up. Toward noon Watson came in. "I saw Brauer yesterday and again this morning... What did you do to make him so sore?" Fred shrugged.
Thanks to the affectionate forethought of my cousin Schmidt, I found one of his relations, Herr Brauer, waiting for me at the railway. I was immediately introduced to his family, and passed the few hours of my stay very agreeably in their company. Evening approached, and with it the hour of embarkation. My kind friends the Brauers accompanied me to the steamer, and I took a grateful leave of them.
"Yes ... all morning." He narrowed his eyes. She went on with her typewriting. "Well, I'll be damned!" escaped him. His wife replied with a tripping laugh. At that moment Brauer came in. "I hear you've got the Hilmer line," he broke out, excitedly. "They say Kendrick is wild... How much did you have to split?" "Nothing," Starratt said, coldly. "Nothing?"
His beard had lost its sunburned character and grown jet black, his face, and particularly his hands, were pale to transparence, his eyes burned too brightly in their sunken sockets. He was not even a ghost of his former self, but rather a sinister reincarnation. He felt that he was even more forbidding than on that night when he had sent Brauer shivering from his presence.
"Office rent for two or three months before the premiums begin to come in ... a little capital to furnish up a room. I might even get some one to give me a desk in his office until I got started. It's done, you know." Brauer neatly extracted a succulent morsel from its scaly sheath. "Don't you think it's better to put up a front?" he inquired.
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