"But it's a cool evening."
"I wonder that a man of your coolness doesn't hire himself out to some
refrigerating company," I remarked, with a sneer which would have
delighted the soul of Cassius himself.
"I have thought of it," returned the being, calmly. "But never went any
further. Summer-hotel proprietors have always outbid the refrigerating
people, and they in turn have been laid low by millionaires, who have
hired me on occasion to freeze out people they didn't like, but who have
persisted in calling. I must confess, though, my dear Hiram, that you are
not much warmer yourself--this greeting is hardly what I expected."
"Well, if you want to make me warmer," I retorted, hotly, "just keep on
calling me Hiram. How the deuce did you know of that blot on my
escutcheon, anyhow?" I added, for Hiram was one of the crimes of my family
that I had tried to conceal, my parents having fastened the name of Hiram
Spencer Carrington upon me at baptism for no reason other than that my
rich bachelor uncle, who subsequently failed and became a charge upon me,
was so named.
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