"Receipt for this! What do you mean? What is it, anyway?" exclaimed Mr.
Underwood, in a bewildered tone.
"It is the month's rent in advance, according to your custom."
"Rent!" Mr. Underwood ejaculated, now thoroughly angry; "what do I want
of rent from you? Can't you let me be a friend to you? Time and time
again I've tried to help you and you wouldn't have it. Now I'll give you
warning, young man, that one of these days you'll go a little too far in
this thing, and then you'll have to look somewhere else for friends, for
when I'm done with a man, I'm done with him forever!"
"Mr. Underwood," said Darrell, with dignity, "you are yourself going too
far at this moment. You know I do not refuse favors from you personally.
Do I not consider your home mine? Have I ever offered you compensation
for anything that you or your sister have done for me? But this is a
different affair altogether."
"Different! I'd like to know wherein."
"Mr. Underwood, if, in addition to your other kindnesses, you personally
offered me the use of this room gratis, I might accept it; but I will
accept no favors from the firm of Underwood & Walcott."
"Humph! I don't see what difference that need make!" Mr. Underwood
retorted.
He sat silently studying Darrell for a few moments, but the latter's
face was as unreadable as his own.
"What have you got against that fellow?" he asked at length, curiously.
"I have nothing whatever against him, Mr. Underwood."
"But you're not friendly to him."
Darrell remained silent.
"He is friendly to you," continued Mr. Underwood; "he has talked with me
considerably about you and takes quite an interest in you and in your
success."
"Possibly," Darrell answered, dryly; "but you will oblige me by not
talking of me to him. I have nothing against Mr. Walcott; I am neither
friendly nor unfriendly to him, but he is a man to whom I do not wish to
be under any obligations whatsoever."
In vain Mr. Underwood argued; Darrell remained obdurate, and when he
left the office a little later he carried with him the receipt of
Underwood & Walcott for office rent.
Darrell's reputation as an expert which he had already established at
the mining camp soon reached Ophir, with the result that he was not long
without work in the new office. For a time he devoted his leisure hours
to unremitting study. The brief but intense summer season of the high
altitudes was now well advanced, however, and in its stifling heat, amid
the noise of the busy little city, and constantly subjected to
interruptions, his scientific studies and researches lost half their
charm.