tickets? Without so much as 'by your leave,' he has walked into our inmost citadel. Why, look how his stocks have risen! He must have gathered in millions through that two hours' work, and the devil of it is that he told the exact truth when he came out."
"What did Ponderby say?" gasped Mackeller. Lord Stranleigh had just returned from seeing his valet.
"Say? Why, poor old Ponderby is dazed; doesn't know what he said, and doesn't know what he did. The dominating personality of this man has left Ponderby all in a tremble. He mops his brow when he thinks of it. He says that Flannigan offered him his private car; told him about it and how it was equipped, praised the excellence of his negro servants, invited him to visit Chicago; said he shouldn't leave the country without seeing Niagara Falls; and simply, it seems to me, talked against time, the unhappy Ponderby answering 'yes' or 'no' at random, and trying to get from under the steely glitter of those glasses of his, which, Ponderby tells me, conceals Flannigan's own expression and enables him to probe into the very soul of the man he is conversing with. Of course, all Flannigan desired was to stop there two and a half hours, and let the newspapers know it; and this he accomplished."
"How in the name of heaven did he get in?"
