'What did you say to him?' asked Humphrey, thoughtfully.
'Showed him out. Second time to-day. It was a hard climb for him, too. He did puff some.'
Humphrey slowly drew a large envelope from an inner pocket and laid it on the table at his elbow.
'Here!' he said, his hand moving up toward the row of four or five cigars that projected from a vest pocket, 'smoke up, you fellows.'
Henry shook his head. Humphrey drew out his pipe; then raised his head, and said quietly:--
There came the unmistakable sound of heavy feet on the stairs. Steadily, step by step, a slowly moving body mounted.
Then, framed in the doorway, stood the huge bulk of Norton P. Boice, breathless, red, and wet of face, his old straw hat pushed back, his yellowish-white, wavy beard covering his necktie and the upper part of his roundly protruding, slightly spotted vest, against which the heavy watch chain with its dangling fraternal insignia stood out prominently.
Boice's eyes, nearly expressionless, finally settled on Humphrey.
'What are you doing here?' he asked, between puffs.
Humphrey's only reply was a slight impatient gesture.
Then he came into the room. Of the three men seated there Humphrey was the only one who knew by certain small external signs, that the Caliph of Simpson Street was blazing with wrath. For here was his own hired lieutenant hobnobbing with the boy whose agile, irresponsible pen had made him the laughing stock of the township and with the intemperate rival who had first attacked and then defied him. And then he had just climbed the stairs for the third and what he meant to be the last time.
'Sit down,' said McGibbon, pushing a chair over with his foot.
Boice ignored this final bit of insolence.
'Well'--McGibbon shrugged; spread out his hands--'I've decided nothing, but as it looks now I may find myself forced to accept it.'
'I think you had better go back to the office,' Boice broke in.
'Shortly. I have no intention of leaving you in the lurch, Mr Boice. But first I have business here.'
'Yes.' Humphrey opened the large envelope. 'Here, McGibbon, is your note to Henry for one thousand dollars, due in November.'
Before their eyes, deliberately, he tore it up, leaned over McGibbon's legs with an, 'I beg your pardon!' and dropped the pieces in the waste-basket. Next he produced a folded document engraved in green and red ink. 'Here,' he concluded, 'is a four per cent, railway bond that stands to-day at a hundred two and a quarter in the market. That's our price for the _Gleaner_.'