"'Lo!" said Hunch uncomfortably.
"Hello!" said Carl pleasantly, pushing the decanter across the table.
Hunch stared at his host, fidgeted, poured himself a generous drink and
waited suggestively.
Carl merely laughed good-humoredly and lighted a cigar.
"Sorry, Hunch," he regretted, "but I've joined the Lithia League!"
"My Gawd!" burst forth Hunch despairingly, adding in heartfelt memory
of his host's enviable steadiness of head, "My Gawd, Carl, what a waste
o' talents!"
Carl laughed.
"Sit down," he invited, "and get it off your mind."
But Hunch's single eye was wandering in fascinated appraisal over
Carl's dark, pleasant face. Even he, coarse and brutal in perception
as he was, was conscious of a difference not wholly attributable to the
Lithia League and felt himself impelled to some verbal recognition of
his host's conspicuous well-being.
"Ye're on the level all right," he swore obscurely. "Ye're white!
Ye're lookin' good, ye're lookin' fine-- By the Lord Harry, Carl, I
don't know as I blame yuh!"
Unable to fathom the nature of the censure thus withheld, Carl remained
silent and Hunch fell again to staring, his immovable eye ridiculously
expressive in stony conjunction with the other. Whatever he found in
Carl's face this time plainly afforded him intense relief, for he
seated himself with a long breath and drew a yellowish paper from his
pocket.
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