Page:Love Insurance - Earl Biggers (1914).djvu/36

Rh And shivering no longer, he went away in his fine fur coat.

As the door closed upon the nobleman, Mr. Thacker turned explosively on his friend from oversea.

"Jephson," he thundered, "you're an idiot! A rank unmitigated idiot!"

The Peter Pan light was bright in Jephson's eyes.

"So new," he half-whispered. "So original! Bless the boy's heart. I've been waiting forty years for a proposition like that."

"Do you realize," Thacker cried, "that seventy-five thousand pounds of your good money depends on the honor of Lord Harrowby?"

"I do," returned Jephson. "And I would not be concerned if it were ten times that sum. I know the breed. Why, once—and you, Thacker, would have called me an idiot on that occasion, too—I insured his father against the loss of a polo game by a team on which the earl was playing. And he played like the devil—the earl did—won the game himself. Ah, I know the breed."