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Page 8
"G'wan," commented the other. "They ain't been in business twenty-five
years."
"I'm only thirty-one."
"More news for Sweeny. You'll never see forty again."
"That statement," said P. Sybarite with some asperity, "is an uncivil
untruth dictated by a spirit of gratuitous contentiousness--"
"Good God!" cried Bross in alarm. "I'm wrong and you're right and I
won't do it again--and forgive me for livin'!"
"With pleasure," agreed P. Sybarite pleasantly....
"It's a funny world," George resumed in philosophic humour, after a
time. "You wouldn't think I could work in the same dump with you seven
years and only be startin' to find out things about you--like to-day.
I always thought your name was Pete--honest."
"Continue to think so," P. Sybarite advised briefly.
"Your people had money, didn't they, oncet?"
"I've been told so, but if true, it only goes to prove there's nothing
in the theory of heredity...."
"I gotcha," announced Bross, upon prolonged and painful analysis.
"How?" asked P. Sybarite, who had fallen to thinking of other matters.
"I mean, I just dropped to your high-sign to mind my own business. All
right, P.S. Far be it from me to wanta pry into your Past. Besides, I
'm scared to--never can tell what I'll turn up--like, f'rinstance,
Per--"
"Steady!"
"Like that they usta call you when you was innocent, I mean."
To this P. Sybarite made no response; and George subsided into morose
reflections. It irked him sore to remember he had been worsted by the
meek little slip of a bookkeeper trotting so quietly at his elbow.
He was a man of his word, was George Bross; not for anything would he
have gone back on his promise to keep secret that afternoon's
titillating discovery; likewise he was a covetous soul, loath to
forfeit the promised treat; withal he was human (after his kind) and
since reprisals were not barred by their understanding, he began then
and there to ponder the same. One way or another, that day's
humiliation must be balanced; else he might never again hold up his
head in the company of gentlemen of spirit.
But how to compass this desire, frankly puzzled him. It were cowardly
to contemplate knockin' the block off'n P. Sybarite; the disparity of
their statures forebade; moreover, George entertained a vexatious
suspicion that P. Sybarite's explanation on his recent downfall had
not been altogether disingenuous; he didn't quite believe it had been
due solely to his own clumsiness and an adventitious foot.
"That sort of thing don't never _happen_," George assured himself
privately. "I was outclassed, all right, all right. What I wanna know
is: where'd he couple up with the ring-wisdom?"
Repeated if covert glances at his companion supplied no clue; P.
Sybarite's face remained as uncommunicative as well-to-do relations by
marriage; his shadowy, pale and wistful smile denoted, if anything,
only an almost childlike pleasure in anticipation of the evening's
promised amusement.
Suddenly it was borne in upon the shipping clerk that in the probable
arrangement of the proposed party he would be expected to dance
attendance upon Miss Violet Prim, leaving P. Sybarite free to devote
himself to Miss Lessing. Whereupon George scowled darkly.
"P.S.'s got his nerve with him," he protested privately, "to cop out
the one pippin in the house all for his lonely. It's a wonder he
wouldn't slip her a chanct to enjoy herself with summon' her own
age....
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