m betting it’s going to rain and if it does she’ll beat Incinerator. . . . All right, give me a better price then. . . . Right.” He put the receiver on its prong and came around in front of Madvig again.
Madvig asked: “Why don’t you try laying off awhile when you hit one of these sour streaks?”
Ned Beaumont scowled. “That’s no good, only spreads it out. I ought to’ve put that fifteen hundred on the nose instead of spreading it across the board. Might as well take your punishment and get it over with.”
Madvig chuckled and raised his head to say: “If you can stand the gaff.”
Ned Beaumont drew down the ends of his mouth, the ends of his mustache following them down. “I can stand anything I’ve got to stand,” he said as he moved towards the door.
He had his hand on the door-knob when Madvig said, earnestly: “I guess you can, at that, Ned.”
Ned Beaumont turned around and asked, “Can what?” fretfully.
Madvig transferred his gaze to the window. “Can stand anything,” he said.
Ned Beaumont studied Madvig’s averted face. The blond man stirred uncomfortably and moved coins in his pockets again. Ned Beaumont made his eyes blank and asked in an utterly puzzled tone: “Who?”
Madvig’s face flushed. He rose from the table and took a step towards Ned Beaumont. “You go to hell,” he said.
Ned Beaumont laughed.
Madvig grinned sheepishly and wiped his face with a green-bordered handkerchief. “Why haven’t you been out to the house?” he asked. “Mom was saying last night she hadn’t seen you for a month.”
“Maybe I’ll drop in some night this week.”
“You ought to. You know how Mom likes you. Come for supper.” Madvig put his handkerchief away.
Ned Beaumont moved towards the door again, slowly, watching the blond man from the ends of his eyes. With his hand on the knob he asked: “Was that what you wanted to see me about?”
Madvig frowned. “Yes, that is–” He cleared his throat. “Uh–oh– there’s something else.” Suddenly his diffidence was gone, leaving him apparently tranquil and self-possessed. “You know more about this stuff than I do. Miss Henry’s birthday’s Thursday. What do you think I ought to give her?”
Ned Beaumont took his hand from the door-knob. His eyes, by the time he was facing Madvig squarely again, had lost their shocked look. He blew cigar-smoke out and asked: “They’re having some kind of birthday doings, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“You invited?”
Madvig shook his head. “But I’m going there to dinner tomorrow night.”
Ned Beaumont looked down at his cigar, then up at Madvig’s face again, and asked: “Are you going to back the Senator, Paul?”
“I think we will.”
Ned Beaumont’s smile was mild as his voice when he put his next question: “Why?”
Madvig smiled. “Because with us behind him he’ll snow Roan under and with his help we can put over the whole ticket just like nobody was running against us.”
Ned Beaumont put his cigar in his mouth. He asked, still mildly: “Without you”–he stressed the pronoun–“behind him could the Senator make the grade this time?”
Madvig was calmly positive. “Not a chance.”
Ned Beaumont, after a little pause, asked: “Does he know that?”
“He ought to know it better than anybody else. And if he didn’t know it– What the hell’s the matter with you?”
Ned Beaumont’s laugh was a sneer. “If he didn’t know it,” he suggested, “you wouldn’t be going there to dinner tomorrow night?”
Madvig, frowning, asked again: “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
Ned Beaumont took the cigar from his mouth. His teeth had bitten the end of it into shredded ruin. He said: “There’s nothing the matter with me.” He put thoughtfulness on his face: “You don’t think the rest of the ticket needs his support?”
“Support’s something no ticket can get too much of,” Madvig replied carelessly, “but without his help we could manage to hold up our end all right.”
“Have you promised him anything yet?”
Madvig pursed his lips. “It’s pretty well settled.”
Ned Beaumont lowered his head until he was looking up under his brows at the blond man. His face had become pale. “Throw him down, Paul,” he said in a low husky voice. “Sink him.”