LOWLY Cogson closed his strong but slender hands until they crumpled and crushed the delicately perfumed letter he had just finished reading. Slowly his lids narrowed over eyes wherein a flood of disappointment congealed into something as coldly glittering and hard as beryl. His firm jaw tightened, and his mouth grew grim. Through the genial mask which he had worn so long that his features had become transformed and molded by it, something wicked and wolfish appeared, like a hideous object gradually illumined behind a thin curtain. Beholding him now, there was not a citizen of Dixport but would have been shocked and amazed.
“I wouldn't say it was good news, 'Kid.'”
Cogson's chin jerked round to his right shoulder. His glittering eyes stabbed the speaker, who stood in the open door of Cogson's private office, where he had appeared with the silence of a shadow and the boldness of a person assured of welcome. He was a man of advanced middle age, lean as a ranging jackal, stooped a bit beneath the weight of years; his color was that of one but recently on familiar terms with sun and wind. The smile he gave Cogson transformed a bitter, resentful face; altered it astoundingly; softened and sweetened it until it seemed to be the face of a person amiable, charming, overbrimming with deep and sincere affection.
With a cry Cogson leaped to his feet, dropping the crumpled letter on his desk. He sprinted toward the man in the doorway. Carefully putting down the traveling bag he was carrying, the latter sprang to meet Cogson, nimbly for his years. They embraced.
“Pop—oh, Pop!” said Cogson, his voice thick with emotion.
The older man thrust him off at arm's length and stood, hands on his shoulders, devouring him with avid gaze. “Kid,” he said huskily, “you're sure a sight for sore eyes. Four years is some time.”
“But why did you”
A quick, soft-whistled “whit” checked the speaker. “Walls hear things,” warned the other, emitting the words softly from the side of his mouth.
“Not these walls, Pop. And we're alone just now because my stenographer and general assistant is home taking care of a sick mother. From where I was sitting I'd seen you come into the outside office if—if I hadn't”
The visitor chuckled. “You was glarin' at that dainty-lookin' billy doo like it had took you off guard and handed you a nasty wallop in the wind.”
“Well, it had. But never mind that now. You're here, Pop! Come sit down. Come tell me where you've been—why I never heard a word from you in the last four years. You're like one come back from the dead. Oh, but it's good to see you here, all right! You can imagine what I thought had happened. But I couldn't find a trace of you. I tried after the first year was up, the year in which I was to turn the trick here. I had everything all set for a big scoop, a killing. It was easy, just as you said it would be. There was a time when we could have walked off with sixty thousand or better. But you weren't here to crack the box.”
With an arm around the older man Cogson had taken him to a chair beside the handsome desk. Declining to let Cogson handle the bag, the visitor took it along himself and placed it carefully at his feet when he sat down. The faces of both men were flushed with pleasure, and their eyes were bright as they gazed at each other. The one called Pop surveyed Cogson with pride, taking him in from head to feet.
“A fine, clean-lookin' lad,” he said as though speaking to himself. “A swell dresser, too; swell enough for Broadway. And planted right in the heart of this ripe rube town; right over the Citizens' National Bank.”
“You told me to get as near the bank as I could,” Cogson reminded him. “Well, I've got on the inside, even. I was elected to the board of directors a month ago.”
The older man whistled his surprise. He slapped his hand down on his knee and broke into appreciative laugher. It was queer laughter, like that of a person out of practice, and it seemed to surprise and almost alarm the one who indulged in it, for he checked his mirth abruptly, rolling his eyes nervously from right to left as though fearful of something.
“Now that's comin', on, Kid—comin' on,” he said, pride expanding his chest. “Oh, I knew you could get away with things like that. What did I have ye educated and polished up for if twasn't to mix with fine folks and put it over on 'em. A director in their bank, what? Well, now!”