"I should never have met him when I was there.He wouldn't have come my way.He'd have been on Wall Street, doing high-class bucket-shop business, or he'd have had a swell office selling copper-mines--any old kind of mine that's going to make ten million a minute, the sort of deal he's in now.If he'd been the kind I might have run up against," he added with deliberation, "he wouldn't have been as well dressed or as well spoken.He'd have been either flashy or down at heel.You'd have called him a crook."The duke seemed pleased with his tea as, after having sipped it, he put it down on the table at his side.
1"It's not complimentary, but you asked me," said Tembarom."But Idon't believe you asked me because you thought I wasn't on to him.""Frankly speaking, no," answered the duke."Does he talk to you about the mammoth mines and the rubber forests?""Say, that's where he wins out with me," Tembarom replied admiringly.
"He gets in such fine work that I switch him on to it whenever I want cheering up.It makes me sorter forget things that worry me just to see a man act the part right up to the top notch the way he does it.
The very way his clothes fit, the style he's got his hair brushed, and that swell, careless lounge of his, are half of the make-up.You see, most of us couldn't mistake him for anything else but just what he looks like--a gentleman visiting round among his friends and a million miles from wanting to butt in with business.The thing that first got me interested was watching how he slid in the sort of guff he wanted you to get worked up about and think over.Why, if I'd been what Ilook like to him, he'd have had my pile long ago, and he wouldn't be loafing round here any more.""What do you think you look like to him?" his host inquired.
"I look as if I'd eat out of his hand," Tembarom answered, quite unbiased by any touch of wounded vanity."Why shouldn't I? And I'm not trying to wake him up, either.I like to look that way to him and to his sort.It gives me a chance to watch and get wise to things.He's a high-school education in himself.I like to hear him talk.I asked him to come and stay at the house so that I could hear him talk.""Did he introduce the mammoth mines in his first call?" the duke inquired.
"Oh, I don't mean that kind of talk.I didn't know how much good I was going to get out of him at first.But he was the kind I hadn't known, and it seemed like he was part of the whole thing--like the girls with title that Ann said I must get next to.And an easy way of getting next to the man kind was to let him come and stay.He wanted to, all right.I guess that's the way he lives when he's down on his luck, getting invited to stay at places.Like Lady Mallowe," he added, quite without prejudice.
"You do sum them up, don't you?" smiled the duke.
"Well, I don't see how I could help it," he said impartially."They're printed in sixty-four point black-face, seems to me.""What is that?" the duke inquired with interest.He thought it might be a new and desirable bit of slang."I don't know that one.""Biggest type there is," grinned Tembarom."It's the kind that's used for head-lines.That's newspaper-office talk.""Ah, technical, I see.What, by the way, is the smallest lettering called?" his grace followed up.
"Brilliant," answered Tembarom.
"You," remarked the duke, "are not printed in sixty-four-point black-face so far as they are concerned.You are not even brilliant.They don't find themselves able to sum you up.That fact is one of my recreations.""I'll tell you why," Tembarom explained with his clearly unprejudiced air."There's nothing much about me to sum up, anyhow.I'm too sort of plain sailing and ordinary.I'm not making for anywhere they'd think I'd want to go.I'm not hiding anything they'd be sure I'd want to hide.""By the Lord! you're not!" exclaimed the duke.
"When I first came here, every one of them had a fool idea I'd want to pretend I'd never set eyes on a newsboy or a boot-black, and that Icouldn't find my way in New York when I got off Fifth Avenue.I used to see them thinking they'd got to look as if they believed it, if they wanted to keep next.When I just let out and showed I didn't care a darn and hadn't sense enough to know that it mattered, it nearly made them throw a fit.They had to turn round and fix their faces all over again and act like it was 'interesting.' That's what Lady Mallowe calls it.She says it's so 'interesting!'""It is," commented the duke.
"Well, you know that, but she doesn't.Not on your life! I guess it makes her about sick to think of it and have to play that it's just what you'd want all your men friends to have done.Now, Palliser--" he paused and grinned again.He was sitting in a most casual attitude, his hands clasped round one up-raised knee, which he nursed, balancing himself.It was a position of informal ease which had an air of assisting enjoyable reflection.
"Yes, Palliser? Don't let us neglect Palliser," his host encouraged him.
"He's in a worse mix-up than the rest because he's got more to lose.
If he could work this mammoth-mine song and dance with the right people, there'd be money enough in it to put him on Easy Street.
That's where he's aiming for.The company's just where it has to have a boost.It's just GOT to.If it doesn't, there'll be a bust up that may end in fitting out a high-toned promoter or so in a striped yellow-and-black Jersey suit and set him to breaking rocks or playing with oakum.I'll tell you, poor old Palliser gets the Willies sometimes after he's read his mail.He turns the color of ecru baby Irish.That's a kind of lace I got a dressmaker to tell me about when I wrote up receptions and dances for the Sunday Earth.Ecru baby Irish--that's Palliser's color after he's read his letters.""I dare say the fellow's in a devil of a mess, if the truth were known," the duke said.