Larcher stricken dumb by the stranger's outrage upon his self-esteem.

Nothing that Mr. Bagley did or said later was calculated to improve the
state of Larcher's feelings toward him. When the three had passed from
the narrow entrance and through a small barroom to a long, low apartment
adorned with old prints and playbills, Mr. Bagley took by conquest from
another intending party a table close to a street window. He spread out
his arms over as much of the table as they would cover, and evinced in
various ways the impulse to grab and possess, which his very manner of
walking had already shown. He even talked loud, as if to monopolize the
company's hearing capacity.

As soon as dinner had been ordered,--a matter much complicated by Mr.
Bagley's calling for things which the house didn't serve, and then
wanting to know why it didn't,--he plunged at once into the details of
some business with Davenport, to which the ignored Larcher, sulking
behind an evening paper, studiously refrained from attending. By the
time the chops and potatoes had been brought, the business had been
communicated, and Bagley's mind was free to regard other things. He
suddenly took notice of Larcher.

"So you're a friend of Dav's, are you?" quoth he, looking with benign
patronage from one young man to the other.

"I've known Mr. Davenport a--short while," said Larcher, with all the
iciness of injured conceit.

"Same business?" queried Bagley.

"I beg your pardon," said Larcher, as if the other had spoken a foreign