The Fighting Chance

His acquaintance among people who knew Mortimer being limited, he had no means of determining the latter's social value except through hearsay and a toadying newspaper or two. Therefore he was not yet aware of Mortimer's perennial need of money; and when Mortimer laughingly alluded to his poverty, Plank accepted the proposition in a purely comparative sense, and laughed, too, his thrifty Dutch soul untroubled by misgivings.

Meanwhile, Mortimer had come, among other things, on information; how much, and precisely of what nature, he was almost too much ashamed to admit definitely, even to himself. Still, the idea that had led him into this sudden intimacy with Plank, vague or not, persisted; and he was always hovering on the edge of hinting at something which might elicit a responsive hint from the flattered master of Black Fells.

There was much about Plank that was unaffected, genuine, even simple, in one sense; he cared for people for their own sakes; and only stubborn adherence to a dogged ambition had enabled him to dispense with the society of many people he might easily have cultivated and liked--people nearer his own sort; and that, perhaps, was the reason he so readily liked Mortimer, whose coarse fibre soon wore through the polish when rubbed against by a closer, finer fibre. And Plank liked him aside from gratitude; and they got on famously on the basis of such mutual recognition. Then, one day, very suddenly, Mortimer stumbled on something valuable--a thread, a mere clew, so astonishing that for an instant it absolutely upset all his unadmitted theories and calculations.

It was nothing--a vague word or two--a forced laugh--and the scared silence of this man Plank, who had blundered on the verge of a confidence to a man he liked.

A moment of amazement, of half-incredulous suspicion, of certainty; and Mortimer pounced playfully upon him like a tiger--a big, fat, friendly, jocose tiger: "Plank, is that what you're up to!"

"Up to! Why, I never thought of such a--"

"Haw! haw!" roared Mortimer. "If you could only see your face!"

And Beverly Plank, red as a beet, comfortably suffused with reassurance under the reaction from his scare, attempted to refute the other's conclusions: "It doesn't mean anything, Mortimer. She's just the handsomest girl I ever saw. I know she's engaged. I only admired her a lot."

"You're not the only man," said Mortimer blandly, still striving to reconcile his preconceived theories with the awkward half-confession of this great, red-fisted, hulking horseman riding at his stirrup.

"I wouldn't have her dream," stammered Plank, "that I had ever thought of such a--"

"Why not? It would only flatter her."