Joe knew a little something about art--he was much like the art
dealers who, as a matter of business, learn the difference between good
things and bad, but in their hearts wonder and laugh at people willing to
part with large sums of money for a little paint or marble or the like.
As soon as Joe thought he had sufficiently impressed young Melville, he
drifted him to a roulette table, left him there and joined me.
"Come to my office," said he. "I want to see you."
He led the way down the richly-carpeted marble stairway as far as the
landing at the turn. There, on a sort of mezzanine, he had a gorgeous
little suite. The principal object in the sitting-room or office was a huge
safe. He closed and locked the outside door behind us.
"Take a seat," said he. "You'll like the cigars in the second box on my
desk--the long one." And he began turning the combination lock. "You
haven't dropped in on us for the past three or four months," he went on.
"No," said I, getting a great deal of pleasure out of seeing again, and
thus intimately, his round, ruddy face--like a yachtman's, not like a
drinker's--and his shifty, laughing brown eyes. "The game down town has
given me enough excitement.
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