"Oh! H'ware you!" said he vaguely, and passed on.
Banneker advanced mechanically until he reached the corner. There he
stopped. His color had heightened. The smile was still on his lips; it
had altered, taken on a quality of gameness. He did not shake his fist
at the embodied spirit of metropolitanism before him, as had a famous
Gallic precursor of his, also a determined seeker for Success in a
lesser sphere; but he paraphrased Rastignac's threat in his own terms.
"I reckon I'll have to lick this town and lick it good before it learns
to be friendly."
A hand fell on his arm. He turned to face Cressey.
"You're the feller that bossed the wreck out there in the desert, aren't
you? You're--lessee--Banneker."
"I am." The tone was curt.
"Awfully sorry I didn't spot you at once." Cressey's genuineness was a
sufficient apology. "I'm a little stuffy to-day. Bachelor dinner last
night. What are you doing here? Looking around?"
"No. I'm living here."
"That so? So am I. Come into my club and let's talk. I'm glad to see
you, Mr. Banneker."
Even had Banneker been prone to self-consciousness, which he was not,
the extreme, almost monastic plainness of the small, neutral-fronted
building to which the other led him would have set him at ease.
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