Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/191

 "I didn't know it'd got that bad. What'd they give out fer the cause?"

"Oh, heart failure, I suppose."

"Beats hell, don't it?"

The secretary of state was silent. Presently he spoke again in an abstracted way:

"Well, Jim 'as a devil of a good feller, as good as you'd meet up 'ith in a coon's age. An' I reckon when it come to a show-down, he 'as our friend. If the boys 'p'ints an investigatin' committee—Jim 'as al'ays a leetle too free 'ith the stuff."

Grigsby said "Yes," in a detached tone. Then there was silence for a space. The bell-boy knocked, bore in his tray and departed. The men nodded over the edges of their little glasses each to the other, and drank. Then Grigsby, wiping his lips, said:

"Hank, I didn't send for you to-night to hold memorial services over Jim Lockhart. There's something more important than that—there's something damned important, and it concerns me."

"You?"

"Yes, me. I'm in this thing just twenty thousand dollars."

"The hell you are!"