Good-night, sir, and pleasant dreams."
With difficulty the Colonel suppressed a groan. However, he was not
the sort of man who suffers in silence; for a minute later the
butler, leaning over the banisters as his master climbed the stairs
to his library, heard the latter curse with an eloquence that was
singularly appealing.
CHAPTER XIV
Colonel Seth Pennington looked up sourly as a clerk entered his
private office. "Well?" he demanded brusquely. When addressing his
employees, the Colonel seldom bothered to assume his pontifical
manner.
"Mr. Bryce Cardigan is waiting to see you, sir."
"Very well. Show him in."
Bryce entered. "Good morning, Colonel," he said pleasantly and
brazenly thrust out his hand.
"Not for me, my boy," the Colonel assured him. "I had enough of that
last night. We'll just consider the hand-shaking all attended to, if
you please. Have a chair; sit down and tell me what I can do to make
you happy."
"I'm delighted to find you in such a generous frame of mind, Colonel.
You can make me genuinely happy by renewing, for ten years on the
same terms as the original contract, your arrangement to freight the
logs of the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company from the woods to
tidewater."
Colonel Pennington cleared his throat with a propitiatory "Ahem-m-m!"
Then he removed his gold spectacles and carefully wiped them with a
silk handkerchief, as carefully replaced them upon his aristocratic
nose, and then gazed curiously at Bryce.
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