LITMIR.BIZ

      1. "Well met!"

      CHAPTER I

       Table of Contents

       “Well met!”

      THIS is an immoral story. It proves without intending to that the best of us are weak, and the worst have elements of decency that overwhelm them when the gods get ready; none of which, of course, is orthodox. But orthodoxy is missing from the calculations of those Powers that rule us—“whatever gods there be” as Swinburne calls them.

      Cottswold Ommony is incorruptible according to report. Report is wrong. They say—the press particularly says it and implies nearly every morning—that Meldrum Strange is a billionaire with brains but no heart; that his heart, if he has one, is brass, and his feet of clay; that his friendship is imaginary, but his enmity a bitter and appalling truth; that he lacks remorse, but has insane ambition; and that his superficial outward resemblance to General Ulysses Grant was devised by Satan expressly to bring the memory of that gallant soldier into disrepute.

      Unexplainable in the circumstances, Meldrum Strange has friends, and Cottswold Ommony has enemies. We, who view all life accurately, classing this man as a hero, that man as a villain, may wonder; but the fact is so. Ommony stands for nearly all the things that Meldrum Strange objects to, including the heresy that more than enough is too much; Strange never had enough, and loves the power of money, which Ommony despises, although like the rest of us he has to bow to it quite often. Ommony approves of individual liberty, whereas Strange believes that all men should be beaten into ploughshares for uplifting use by their betters. They met, and there was no explosion, which is the most remarkable circumstance; but much else happened.

      CHARLEY MEARS began it. Charley stepped lively from a first-class compartment (It was labeled, Branch of the Bombay and Southern India Railway. First Class) on the single track that winds among hills and trees until it makes a short cut through the forest where Ommony lives at intervals and is almost king.

      Charley smiled at the naked legs of a porter nearly twice as large as himself, and sent up word on the back of a calling-card that he had come, and would Mr. Ommony care to see him. So Ommony, who cares about everything interesting under the sun, sent the tonga. Less than an hour later Charley jumped off the back seat of that prehistoric vehicle, pitched his valise on to the lower step of the veranda—having not got used yet to being waited on—and was aware of Ommony taking his time about rising from a chair under the stags’ antlers on lie veranda. Three dogs came down and made instant friends with Charley, while a fourth stood guard.

      “Well met,” said Ommony. “Come up.”

      So Charley climbed the seven steps, shook hands, and sat in a canvas chair, while an enormous staghound sniffed him over carefully and Ommony filled a pipe.

      “You like it here?” asked Charley.

      “I’ve liked it for twenty years,” said Ommony, observing that Charley stroked the staghound’s ears without waiting for introductions—a thing very few strangers dare attempt. “Have you had breakfast?”

      “Forgotten what it ’ud feel like! Ate dead goat yesterday afternoon at a junction restaurant.”

      Ommony sent for the butler, gave orders and turned to his guest again.

      “You’ve come to stay, of course?”

      “If that’s agreeable. You got my letter?”

      “Yes, but you didn’t say much. Tell me who you are.”

      “Nobody important. Strange hired me to travel with him, but I haven’t seen him in two weeks. He sends me ahead. Time he gets to a place I’m miles away.”

      “I begin to understand,” said Ommony without changing his expression. “You’re here in advance of Meldrum Strange to——”

      “Dope you out? Lord, no! I did that coming up the steps. You’re o.k.”

      “Thanks,” said Ommony, without a trace of sarcasm, and sat still, smoking, looking at his guest.

      They resembled each other as much as a terrier does a grizzly. Ommony’s short beard disguises the kindest mouth and the firmest chin in Asia. His shoulders have stood up under responsibility for so long that the stamp of that is on them permanently. He is staunchly built, muscled up, and is exactly in the prime of life—an age that varies with individuals.

      Charley Mears, on the other hand, with no more than five feet seven to boast of, and not much more than a hundred pounds of it, shows twenty-three years and weazel alertness on a clean-shaven face. You can’t tell what his hand holds, but you know he has played worse ones, and at the first glance you would trust him with your shirt. He looks like a man who has been hit hard, but who invariably won in the last round, if not sooner; nervous, keen, amused, aware of the world’s rough edges, and as hard to beat as a royal flush. His steely gray eyes looked straight into Ommony’s dark ones, and each in their own way betrayed absorbing interest.

      “Strange heard of you from the gang,” said Charley. “Say this for him: he has the best string ever. Picks ’em. Knows the trick. James Schuyler Grim’s a pippin. Jeff Ramsden, half a ton of he-man, right end up; bet your back teeth on him. Athelstan King—Englishman,

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