you studied him casually. Not only his strong shoulders, his firm set
on his feet, his well-conditioned skin, showed the ex-athlete who has
kept up his athletics into middle age, but also that very breeze and
bound of a man whose blood runs quick and orderly through its channels.
His face, a little pudgy, took illumination from a pair of lively eyes.
He was the jester in the court of King Norcross; one of the half-dozen
men whom the bachelor lord of railroads admitted to intimacy. A
measured intimacy it was; and it never trenched on business. Bulger,
like all the rest, owed half of his position to the fact that he never
asked by so much as a hint for tips, never seemed curious about the
operations of Norcross. There was the time on Wall Street when
Norcross, by a lift of his finger, a deflection of his eye, might have
put his cousin and only known relative on the right side of the market.
He withheld the sign, and his cousin lost. The survivors in Norcross's
circle of friends understood this perfectly; it was why they survived.
If they got any financial advantage from the friendship, it was through
the advertising it gave. For example, Bulger, a broker of only moderate
importance, owed something to the general understanding that he was
"thick with the Old Man."

Norcross looked up; his mustache lifted a little, and his eyes lit.

"Drink?" he said. His allowance was two drinks a day; one just before
he left the office, the other before dinner.

"Much obliged," responded Bulger, "but you know where I was last night.
If I took a drink now, I would emit a pale, blue flame."

Norcross laughed a purring laugh, and touched a bell. The secretary
stood in the door; Norcross indicated, by an out-turned hand, the top