could not hear a sound from the far-off dining-room. He stared at the onyx clock on the mantelpiece and wondered where Helen was having dinner. Maybe right next door for all he knew. Silly to be so unaware of his own wife's doings. For all he knew—but no, not Helen. She didn't have enough life in her for that sort of thing.
Presently Bert McKay came to join him in the parlor. Bert was big and pleasant. He shook hands heartily and boomed questions at his guest. How was he? How were tricks? What was he doing? How were Mrs. Scott and the boy?
Hubert said that he and the family were fine and that he just dropped in to see how everything was going with his old friend Bert.
"Are you working at anything?" Bert asked.
"No. Why?"
"I just wondered. It just doesn't seem possible to me that a fellow could be satisfied doing nothing all day long."
"Well, to tell you the truth, Bert, I've had enough of it. I am going to do a little something if I hear of a job that I like."
Bert nodded. "Sure, a fellow can't feel right, just laying around."
"I don't suppose there's anything over at the old place for me."
Bert laughed and Hubert laughed with him. "No," said Bert. "There's no job around that place for a guy that's used to taking it easy."
