Explore "The Leopard's Spots" by Fred M. White on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Gilbert would have gone on to the dining room whilst this conversation was proceeding on the telephone, but Stagg detained him with a gesture, and he stood there smoking his cigar, and idly taking in a one-sided conversation that conveyed very little to him. It was only when the two men reached the library and Stagg got out the spirit decanters that Gilbert began to understand. It was getting rather late now, but neither of the two felt in the least like bed, and Stagg, at any rate, had a good deal to talk about.
"Sit down, my boy," he said in his most genial fashion. "I want you to feel absolutely at home here, because you have been exceedingly useful to me to-night, and though you don't look it you are as full of pluck as any man I ever met."