“Yes, it’s business. And if you’re waiting for Jack, you’ll wait a long time. When he sits in at the game, he stays to see it out. Let’s get out of this mess.” David reluctantly followed his guide to one of a series of small card-rooms back of the bar. Lushing snapped the electric light switch as one who knew his surroundings intimately, and sat down at the card-table. “What’ll you drink?” he demanded brusquely. “Nothing at all; I’m not thirsty.” Lushing pressed the bell-push for himself, and when the bar-man came, ordered a whiskey-sour. “Won’t you change your mind?” he suggested, after the drink had been served; and when David shook his head: “All right; every man to his own taste. Here goes,” and he drained his glass. More and more David was wishing himself well out of it. There could be nothing but enmity between him and this loose-lipped man across the card-table, and the savage prompting to precipitate an open conflict was becoming ungovernable. “If you’ll say what you wish to say,” he grated. “My time is pretty strictly limited.” “Not if you’re waiting for Jack Dargin,” said Lushing. “But perhaps you want to get back to the hotel.” Then he added in a tone which seemed to be intentionally insulting: “They tell me you are one of Eben Grillage’s pets.” David’s anger flamed alive like a flash of dry powder, but he was telling himself in many repetitions that his time had not yet come. “We shall get along faster, and perhaps farther, if you will cut out the personalities,” he said sourly. “I was only repeating what I have heard. You are young to be at the head of a job of this size, and people have a way of explaining such things to suit themselves.” “I might go into the repeating business myself, if I cared to,” David was beginning; but Lushing cut him off with a short laugh. “I know; some of them have told you that I have a personal quarrel with Grillage, and perhaps some others have hinted that I wanted to marry into the company and got kicked out for my impudence. We’ll let that go. What was, is ancient history, and we’re dealing with the here and now. Your company is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg, and if you don’t know it, you ought to. Its days on this job are numbered.” “Threats are the cheapest things in the world,” said David. “You will find that this is more than a threat. You are a new man in the field, and I’ve nothing against you--as yet. What I wanted to see you for was to say to you that you’d better go while the sledding is good.” “You are advising me to discharge myself?” “That’s it--quit--throw up the job--climb out while you can get out with a whole skin.” “But why?” “Because if you don’t, you’ll be shown up with the other pirates and sneak thieves.” David glanced again at the flushed face and bibulous eyes. It was evident that the drink tossed off while the bar-man waited was only the latest of a series which had been begun much earlier in the day.