Sigsbee Waddington thought Ferris was an overfed wart.
Ferris thought Sigsbee Waddington ought to be ashamed to appear in public in a tie like that.
But thoughts are not words. What Ferris actually said was:
“A cocktail, sir?”
And what Sigsbee Waddington actually said was:
“Yup! Gimme!”
There was a pause. Mr. Waddington still unsoothed, continued to glower. Ferris, resuming his marmoreal calm, had begun to muse once more, as was his habit when in thought, on Brangmarley Hall, Little-Seeping-in-the-Wold, Salop, Eng., where he had spent the early, happy days of his butlerhood.
“Ferris!” said Mr. Waddington at length.
“Sir?”
“You ever been out West, Ferris?”
“No, sir.”
“Ever want to go?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?” demanded Mr. Waddington belligerently.
“I understand that in the Western States of America, sir, there is a certain lack of comfort, and the social amenities are not rigorously observed.”
“Gangway!” said Mr. Waddington, making for the front door.
He felt stifled. He wanted air. He yearned, if only for a few brief instants, to be alone with the silent stars.
It would be idle to deny that, at this particular moment, Sigsbee H. Waddington was in a dangerous mood. The history of nations shows that the wildest upheavals come from those peoples that have been most rigorously oppressed: and it is so with individuals. There is no man so terrible in his spasmodic fury as the henpecked husband during his short spasms of revolt. Even Mrs. Waddington recognised that, no matter how complete her control normally, Sigsbee H., when having one of his spells, practically amounted to a rogue elephant. Her policy was to keep out of his way till the fever passed, and then to discipline him severely.
As Sigsbee Waddington stood on the pavement outside his house, drinking in the dust-and-gasolene mixture which passes for air in New York and scanning the weak imitation stars which are the best the East provides, he was grim and squiggle-eyed and ripe for murders, stratagems and spoils. Molly’s statement that there was no Zane Grey in the house had been very far from the truth. Sigsbee Waddington had his private store, locked away in a secret cupboard, and since early morning Riders of the Purple Sage had hardly ever been out of his hand. During the afternoon, moreover, he had managed to steal away to a motion-picture house on Sixth Avenue where they were presenting Henderson Hoover and Sara Svelte in That L’il Gal from the Bar B Ranch. Sigsbee Waddington, as he stood on the pavement, was clad in dress clothes and looked like a stage waiter, but at heart he was wearing chaps and a Stetson hat and people spoke of him as Two-Gun Thomas.
A Rolls-Royce drew up at the kerb, and Mr. Waddington moved a step or two away. A fat man alighted and helped his fatter wife out. Mr. Waddington recognised them. B. and Mrs. Brewster Bodthorne. B. Brewster was the first vice-president of Amalgamated Toothbrushes, and rolled in money.
“Pah!” muttered Mr. Waddington, sickened to the core.
The pair vanished into the house, and presently another Rolls-Royce arrived, followed by a Hispano-Suiza. Consolidated Popcorn and wife emerged, and then United Beef and daughter. A consignment worth on the hoof between eighty and a hundred million.
“How long?” moaned Mr. Waddington. “How long?”
And then, as the door closed, he was aware of a young man behaving strangely on the pavement some few feet away from him.
IV
The reason why George Finch—for it was he—was behaving strangely was that he was a shy young man and consequently unable to govern his movements by the light of pure reason. The ordinary tough-skinned everyday young fellow with a face of brass and the placid gall of an Army mule would, of course, if he had decided to pay a call upon a girl in order to make inquiries about her dog, have gone right ahead and done it. He would have shot his cuffs and straightened his tie, and then trotted up the steps and punched the front-door bell. Not so the diffident George.
George’s methods were different. Graceful and, in their way, pretty to watch, but different. First, he stood for some moments on one foot, staring at the house. Then, as if some friendly hand had dug three inches of a meat-skewer into the flesh of his leg, he shot forward in a spasmodic bound. Checking this as he reached the steps, he retreated a pace or two and once more became immobile. A few moments later, the meat-skewer had got to work again and he had sprung up the steps, only to leap backwards once more on to the sidewalk.
When Mr. Waddington first made up his mind to accost him, he had begun to walk round in little circles, mumbling to himself.
Sigsbee Waddington was in no mood for this sort of thing. It was the sort of thing, he felt bitterly, which could happen only in this degraded East. Out West, men are men and do not dance tangoes by themselves on front doorsteps. Venters, the hero of Riders of the Purple Sage, he recalled, had been described by the author as standing “tall and straight, his wide shoulders flung back, with the muscles of his arms rippling and a blue flame of defiance in his gaze.” How different, felt Mr. Waddington, from this imbecile young man who seemed content to waste life’s springtime playing solitary round-games in the public streets.
“Hey!” he said sharply.
The exclamation took George
