"I wish you luck, Charlie, old man," smiled Henry, offering a hearty hand.
"Thanks, Henry, you good old stiff," said Clayton, and then, laying a hand affectionately upon Harrington's shoulder as his glance swept the room, presumed to give some serious advice. "Let me tell you something, Henry, pal of mine. You ought to be more thrifty. Youth is slipping along. You're not making money enough. You're wasting pretty decent talent on a lot of rag-tag and bob-tailed cases."
"Oh, I don't know." Harrington's expression was thoughtful again. "I make enough for my wants," he defended, slipping down in his chair. "I'm lazy, you know, along with the rest. I've made the supreme physical effort of my life along with the emotional. I shall never get over being tired. I don't want to work hard. I don't want to get on. I only want to get by, Charlie, and I take only the kind of cases that—well, I couldn't tell you why I take a single darned one of them." He confessed this, looking quite surprised with himself. "I couldn't really."
Clayton, pushing and practical, gazed a moment perplexed, and then his features broke up in hearty laughter. "You win, Henry," he cried. "You're just the most truthful darned soul in the world and the most modest. That's why people like you so and they see through your modesty; they know you're a lot bigger and better man than you think you are."
Henry looked puzzled by this speech and embarrassed. "You don't mean, Charlie" he began to inquire, and then stopped as if perceiving that vanity was about to trick him into reprehensible loquacity. "How about a little game of draw tonight?" he asked.
