The chair was brought and put at the unoccupied side of the table, facing the wall. Vance sat down, slumping back in the chair, leaning indolently toward Red, his left arm hooked over the chair-back, his right hand holding a cigarette.
“Well, Red,” he said when he was thus installed, “have you got any news for me?”
His voice was suave, but loud enough for those at nearby tables to hear.
“Not a word.” O’Leary’s voice made no pretense of friendliness, nor of caution.
“What, no spinach?” Vance’s thin-lipped smile spread, and his dark eyes had a mirthful but not pleasant glitter. “Nobody gave you anything to give me?”
“No,” said O’Leary, emphatically.
“My goodness!” said Vance, the smile in his eyes and mouth deepening, and getting still less pleasant. “That’s ingratitude! Will you help me collect, Red?”
“No.”
I was disgusted with this redhead—half-minded to let him go under when the storm broke. Why couldn’t he have stalled his way out—fixed up a fancy tale that Bluepoint would have had to halfway accept? But no—this O’Leary boy was so damned childishly proud of his toughness that he had to make a show of it when he should have been using his bean. If it had been only his own carcass that was due for a beating, it would have been all right. But it wasn’t all right that Jack and I should have to suffer. This big chump was too valuable to lose. We’d have to get ourselves all battered up saving him from the rewards of his own pigheadedness. There was no justice in it.