"I'll take my chances of showing
you up one way or another, just the same. You _are_ Murray Davenport,
and I know it; that's pretty good material to start with. Your story has
managed to convince _me_, little as I could hear of it; and I'm not
exactly a 'come-on' as to fairy tales, at that--"
"It convinced you as I told it, and because of your peculiar sense of the
traits and resources of Murray Davenport. But can you impart that sense
to any one else? And can you tell the story as I told it? I'll wager you
can't tell it so as to convince a lawyer."
"How much will you wager?" said Bagley, scornfully, the gambling spirit
lighting up in him.
"I merely used the expression," said Turl. "I'm not a betting man."
"I am," said Bagley. "What'll you bet I can't convince a lawyer?"
"I'm not a betting man," repeated Turl, "but just for this occasion I
shouldn't mind putting ten dollars in Mr. Larcher's hands, if a lawyer
were accessible at this hour."
He turned to Larcher, with a look which the latter made out vaguely as a
request to help matters forward on the line they had taken. Not quite
sure whether he interpreted correctly, Larcher put in:
"I think there's one to be found not very far from here. I mean Mr.
Barry Tompkins; he passes most of his evenings at a Bohemian resort near
Sixth Avenue. He was slightly acquainted with Murray Davenport, though.
Would that fact militate?"
"Not at all, as far as I'm concerned," said Turl, taking a bank-bill from
his pocket and handing it to Larcher.
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