"I'll go as I am, beard and all. I only make myself ridiculous,
trying to be a sheep. I'm a goat, and a goat I'll stay."
That shut him into himself. When he re-emerged, it was to say: "Something
doing down town to-day, eh?"
A sharpness in his voice and in his eyes, too, made me put my mind on him
more closely, and then I saw what I should have seen before--that he was
moody and slightly distant.
"Seen Tom Langdon this afternoon?" I asked carelessly.
He colored. "Yes--had lunch with him," was his answer.
I smiled--for his benefit. "Aha!" thought I. "So Tom Langdon has been fool
enough to take this paroquet into his confidence." Then I said to him: "Is
Tom making the rounds, warning the rats to leave the sinking ship?"
"What do you mean, Matt?" he demanded, as if I had accused him.
I looked steadily at him, and I imagine my unshaven jaw did not make my
aspect alluring.
"That I'm thinking of driving the rats overboard," replied I. "The ship's
sound, but it would be sounder if there were fewer of them."
"You don't imagine anything Tom could say would change my feelings toward
you?" he pleaded.
"I don't know, and I don't care a damn," replied I coolly. "But I do know,
before the Langdons or anybody else can have Blacklock pie, they'll have
first to catch their Blacklock.
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