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42 He flicked the ash on the floor, watching it fall as if computing to a milligram just how much it was worth. Then he looked wistfully up at the ceiling.

"It really is touching."

"Besides your charming but nervy self, what is?"

"Oh the love of your father for his only son and heir—I—wonder how much he'd appreciate a little news of a certain night at Napoli's, for instance—or that little game at Smith's, or that coffee-coloured girl they bill as 'Rosetta'—How do you like the flavour," he enquired solicitously, "try another?"

Now Philip was not nearly as afraid of the gambler as of Old Man Veldmann. For all his pretended disdain—which after all was merely a sort of class-consciousness—he stood a little in awe of the latter, whose wickedness seemed uncanny. The old rascal belonged to every age, to every clime. He might have shipped as coxswain of a Berseker crew, or sailed the seas in the Flying Dutchman. The cold, efficient MacAllister represented a more modern and commercialized deviltry, something the amiable youth felt he could understand and aspire to, even match. So he was enjoying himself hugely in spite of his bruises, and resolutely assumed what his fraternity brothers had once decided was the best "poker face." "Garden, Garrison, McClintock," he murmured, "funny how many names that man had, and my father has an excellent memory." He extended his own cigarette-case, asking with an ironic cunning,—"Try one of mine—I hope you like the flavour."