Luxury of luxuries! The bath-room was immaculate in white tiling, the
tub shone resplendently white, and there was steaming-hot water!
Conniston, having strolled into the "rest-room," where he found a deep
leather chair with a table close to its elbow decorated simply but
none the less effectively with a decanter of whisky and a silver box
containing cigarettes, leaned back, enjoying himself and the sound of
the splashing in the bath-room.
Once more in familiar and comfortable environment, even Hapgood for
the moment forgot to be miserable, and as he smoked a good cigarette
and watched the water running into the tub now and then hummed a
Broadway air. As for Conniston, his serene good nature under most
circumstances, his greatest asset in the small frays he had had with
the world, was untroubled by a spot.
"How do you like the West, Roger?" he called, banteringly.
"Something like, eh, Greek?" Hapgood laughed back. "Do you know, I
believe I'll stay! And the dame, isn't she some class, eh?"
He finished his bath finally, and at last emerged, half dressed, to
lounge in the big chair while his friend took his plunge. He heard
Conniston singing to the obligato of the running water, and, with eyes
half closed, leaned back and watched his smoke swirl ceilingward.
Presently the bath-room door opened again, and he saw Conniston, his
trousers in his hand, standing in the doorway, grinning as though at
some rare laughter-provoking thought.
"Well, old man," Hapgood smiled back at him, "whence the mirth?"
Conniston chuckled gleefully.
"Another joke, Roger, my boy! I wonder when the Fates are going to
drop us in order to give their undivided attention to some other lucky
mortals? You know that twenty-seven dollars and sixty cents?"
"Well?"
"I've lost it!" Conniston laughed outright as his ready imagination
depicted amusing complications ahead. "Every blamed cent of it!"
"What!" Hapgood was upon his feet, staring. Hapgood's complacency was
a thing of the past.
Conniston nodded, his grin still with him.
"Every cent of it! And here we are the Lord knows how far from home--"
"Have you looked through all your pockets?"
"Every one. And I found--"
"What?"
"A hole," chuckled Conniston. "Just a hole, and nothing more."
Hapgood jerked the trousers from the shaking hand of the man whom
such a catastrophe could move to laughter, and made a hurried search.
"What the devil are we going to do?" he gasped, when there was at last
no doubting the truth.
Conniston shrugged. "I haven't had time to figure out that part of it.
Haven't you any money?"
"About seven dollars," snapped Hapgood. "And a long time that will
keep the two of us. It's up to you, Greek!"
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that you've got to wire your dad for money. There's nothing
left to do. Dang it!" he finished, bitterly, throwing the empty
trousers back to Conniston, "I was a fool to ever come with you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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