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Still, if you say so " "No, Wilfred," she declined, "if you can't do it willingly, I don't want you to do it at all. It doesn't matter in the least. Let's drop the subject." One afternoon, swinging along Fifth Avenue in his down-town walk, Samson met Mr. Farbish, who fell into step with him, and began to make conversation.
After Adrienne and Samson had disappeared, he rejoined his companion, a stout, middle-aged gentleman of florid complexion, whose cheviot cutaway and reposeful waistcoat covered a liberal embonpoint. Farbish took his cigar from his lips, and studied its ascending smoke through lids half-closed and thoughtful. "Singular," he mused; "very singular!"
Samson heard him out with a face enigmatically set, and his voice was soft, as he said simply at the end: "I'm obliged to you." Farbish had hoped for more stress of feeling, but, as he walked home, he told himself that the sphinx-like features had been a mask, and that, when these two met, their coming together held potentially for a clash.
The crowd itself was typical. A few very minor writers and artists, a model or two, and several women who had thinking parts in current Broadway productions. At eleven o'clock the guests of honor arrived in a taxicab. They were Mr. William Farbish and Miss Winifred Starr. Having come, as they explained, direct from the theater where Miss Starr danced in the first row, they were in evening dress.
After you've changed your method from rifle to shotgun, you'll bag your share, and you'll come back fitter for work. I must arrange it." "As to that," suggested Farbish, in the manner of one regarding the civilities, "Mr. South can run down to the Kenmore. I'll have a card made out for him." "Don't trouble," demurred Lescott, coolly, "I can fix that up."
And, in the meantime, I'll telephone." On the train Samson was surprised to discover that, after all, he had Mr. William Farbish for a traveling companion. That gentleman explained that he had found an opportunity to play truant from business for a day or two, and wished to see Samson comfortably ensconced and introduced.
He halted a short distance from Farbish, and drew from his pocket a crumpled scrap of the offending magazine page: the item that had offended Horton. "I may not have good manners, Mister Farbish, but where I come from we know how to handle varmints." He dropped his voice and added for the plotter's ear only: "Here's a little matter on the side that concerns only us.
Then it was that Farbish dropped in with marching orders, and Samson, yearning to be away where there were open skies, packed George Lescott's borrowed paraphernalia, and prepared to leave that same night. While he was packing, the telephone rang, and Samson heard Adrienne's voice at the other end of the wire. "Where have you been hiding?" she demanded.
After awhile, they sat silent, Farbish smiling over the plot he had just devised, and the other man puffing with a puzzled expression at his cigar. "That's all there is to it," summarized Mr. Farbish, succinctly. "If we can get these two men, South and Horton, together down there at the shooting lodge, under the proper conditions, they'll do the rest themselves, I think. I'll take care of South.
Farbish looked his surprise, but was resolved to see no offense, and, after a few moments of affable and, it must be acknowledged, witty conversation, withdrew to his own table. "Where did you meet that man?" demanded Samson, fiercely, when he and the girl were alone again. "Oh, at any number of dinners and dances. His sort is tolerated for some reason."
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