Then
he told me to tell you fellows, and ask you to come too." Jack paused,
and added half mischievously, "He sort of asked ME what I would take
to stand by him in the row, if there was one, and I told him I'd
take--whiskey! You see, boys, it's a kind of off-night with me, and
I wouldn't mind for the sake of old times to finish the game with old
Steptoe that I began a matter of five years ago."
"All right," said Demorest, with a kindling eye; "I suppose we'd better
start at once. One moment," he added. "Barker boy, will you excuse me if
I speak a word to Hamlin?" As Barker nodded and walked to the rails of
the veranda, Demorest took Hamlin aside, "You and I," he said hurriedly,
"are SINGLE men; Barker has a wife and child. This is likely to be no
child's play."
But Jack Hamlin was no fool, and from certain leading questions which
Barker had already put, but which he had skillfully evaded, he surmised
that Barker knew something of his wife's escapade. He answered a little
more seriously than his wont, "I don't think as regards HIS WIFE that
would make much difference to him or her how stiff the work was."
Demorest turned away with his last pang of bitterness. It needed only
this confirmation of all that Stacy had hinted, of what he himself had
seen in his brief interview with Mrs. Barker since his return, to shake
his last remaining faith. "We'll all go together, then," he said, with
a laugh, "as in the old times, and perhaps it's as well that we have no
woman in our confidence.
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