I always thought your name was Pete--honest."
"Continue to think so," P. Sybarite advised briefly.
"Your people had money, didn't they, oncet?"
"I've been told so, but if true, it only goes to prove there's nothing
in the theory of heredity...."
"I gotcha," announced Bross, upon prolonged and painful analysis.
"How?" asked P. Sybarite, who had fallen to thinking of other matters.
"I mean, I just dropped to your high-sign to mind my own business. All
right, P.S. Far be it from me to wanta pry into your Past. Besides, I
'm scared to--never can tell what I'll turn up--like, f'rinstance,
Per--"
"Steady!"
"Like that they usta call you when you was innocent, I mean."
To this P. Sybarite made no response; and George subsided into morose
reflections. It irked him sore to remember he had been worsted by the
meek little slip of a bookkeeper trotting so quietly at his elbow.
He was a man of his word, was George Bross; not for anything would he
have gone back on his promise to keep secret that afternoon's
titillating discovery; likewise he was a covetous soul, loath to
forfeit the promised treat; withal he was human (after his kind) and
since reprisals were not barred by their understanding, he began then
and there to ponder the same. One way or another, that day's
humiliation must be balanced; else he might never again hold up his
head in the company of gentlemen of spirit.
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