adin; but he could hardly exterminate such a bunch as that.
It is my firm conviction that we are now, on this pleasant afternoon,
double-crossed in a good and workmanlike manner.

"The Johnson-Mitchell firm is now Johnson, Mitchell & Company, our late
friends, or the survivors, being the Company."

These remarks were addressed to the elder of Mr. Dewing's two table
mates. But it was Eric Anderson, tall and lean and lowering, who
made answer.

"You may set your uneasy mind at rest, Mr. Something. Suspectin'
treachery comes natural to you--being what you are."

"There--that's enough!"

This was the third man, Mayer Zurich. He sprang up, speaking sharply; a
tall, straight man, broad-shouldered, well proportioned, with a handsome,
sparkling, high-colored face. "Eric, you grow more insolent every day.
Cut it out!"

Mr. Dewing, evenly enough, shifted his thoughtful gaze upon tall Eric,
seemingly without resentment for the outburst.

"Well, wasn't he insultin' the boys then?" demanded Eric.

"I guess you're right, there," Mayer Zurich admitted. "I was not at all
in favor of taking so many of them in on this proposition; but I'm not
afraid of them doin' me dirt, now they're in. I don't see why the three
of us couldn't have kept this to ourselves--but Something had to blab it
out! Why he should do that, and then distrust the very men he chose for
so munificent a sharing of a confidence better withheld--that is quite
beyond my understanding. Dewing, you would never have clapped an eye on
that nugget if I had suspected in you so unswerving a loyalty to the
gang. I confess I was disappointed in you--and I count you my right-hand
man."

The speech of the educated man, in Mr. Zurich, was overlaid with
colloquialism and strange idiom, made a second tongue by long
familiarity.

"Your left-hand man!" Dewing made the correction with great composure.
"You come to me to help you, because, though you claim all the discredit
for your left-handed activities, I furnish a good half of the brains.
And I blabbed--as you so elegantly phrased it--because I am far too
intelligent to bite a bulldog for a bone. Our friends in the Gavilan
pride themselves on their nerve. They are fighting men, if you
please--very fearless and gallant. That suits me. I am no gentleman.
Quite the contrary. I am very intelligent, as afore-said. It was the part
of prudence--"

"That is a very good word--prudence." The interpolation came from tall
Eric.

"A