The Fighting Chance

"Investing!" sneered Mortimer. "Well, no, not exactly, having nothing to invest, thanks to my being swindled into joining his Amalgamated Electric gang. Don't worry. If there's any shaking down to be done, I'll do it, my friend," and he rose, and started toward the elevators.

"Wait," said Plank. "Why, man, you can't frighten Quarrier! What did you sell your holdings for? Why didn't you come to us--to me? What's the use of going to Quarrier now, and scolding? You can't scare a man like that."

Mortimer fairly grinned in his face.

"Your big mistake," he sneered, "is in undervaluing others. You don't think I amount to very much, do you, Beverly? But I'm going to try to take care of myself all the same." He laughed, showing his big teeth, and the vanity in him began to drug him. "No, you think I don't know much. But men like you and Quarrier will damn soon find out! I want you to understand," he went on excitedly, forgetting the instinctive caution which in saner moments he was only too certain that his present business required--"I want you to understand a few things, my friend, and one of them is that I'm not afraid of Quarrier, and another is, I'm not afraid of you!"

"Leroy--"

"No, not afraid of you, either!" repeated Mortimer with an ugly stare. "Don't try any of your smug, aint-it-a-shame-he-drinks ways on me, Beverly! I'm getting tired of it; I'm tired of it now, by God! You keep a civil tongue in your head after this--do you understand?--and we'll get on all right. If you don't, I've the means to make you!"

"Are you crazy?"

"Not a bit of it! Too damn sane for you and Leila to hoodwink!"

"You are crazy!" repeated Plank, aghast.

"Am I? You and Leila can take the matter into court, if you want to--unless I do. And"--here he leaned forward, showing his teeth again--"the next time you kiss her, close the door!"

Then he went away up the marble steps and entered an elevator; and Plank, grave and pale, went out into the street and entered his big touring-car. But the drive up town and through the sunlit park gave him no pleasure, and he entered his great house with a heavy, lifeless step, head bent, as though counting every crevice in the stones under his lagging feet. For the first time in all his life he was afraid of a man.

The man he was afraid of had gone directly to Quarrier's office, missing the gentleman he was seeking by such a small fraction of a minute that he realised they must have passed each other in the elevators, he ascending while Quarrier was descending.