" He rose and pressed a bell behind
him and ordered whiskeys and ginger ales, as if he were in a hotel. "Sit
down, Crocker," he said, waving me to a morocco chair. "Why don't you
come over to see us oftener?"
"I've been quite busy," I said.
This remark seemed to please him immensely.
"What a sly old chap you are," said he; "really, I shall have to go back
to the inn and watch you."
"What the deuce do you mean?" I demanded.
He looked me over in well-bred astonishment and replied:
"Hang me, Crocker, if I can make you out. You seem to know the world
pretty well, and yet when a fellow twits you on a little flirtation you
act as though you were going to black his eyes."
"A little flirtation!" I repeated, aghast.
"Oh, well," he said, smiling, "we won't quarrel over a definition. Call
it anything you like."
"Don't you think this a little uncalled for?" I asked, beginning to lose
my temper.
"Bless you, no. Not among friends: not among such friends as we are."
"I didn't know we were such devilish good friends," I retorted warmly.
"Oh, yes, we are, devilish good friends," he answered with assurance;
"known each other from boyhood, and all that. And I say, old chap," he
added, "you needn't be jealous of me, you know. I got out of that long
ago. And I'm after something else now."
For a space I was speechless. Then the ludicrous side of the matter
struck me, and I laughed in spite of myself.
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