And it gratified Mortimer, because he saw that it was going to make many matters much easier for himself and his protege.
The tall glasses were filled and drained again before they departed to the cold plunge and dressing-rooms above, whence presently they emerged in street garb to drive down town and lunch together at the Lenox Club, Plank as Fleetwood's guest.
Mortimer, very heavy and inert after luncheon, wedged himself into a great stuffed arm-chair by the window, where he alternately nodded over his coffee and wheezed in his breathing, and leered out at Fifth Avenue from half-closed, puffy eyes.

And there he was due to sit, sodden and replete, until the fashionable equipages began to flash past.

He'd probably see his wife driving with Mrs.Ferrall or with Miss Caithness, or perhaps with some doddering caryatid of the social structure; and he'd sit there, leering with gummy eyes out of the club windows, while servants in silent processional replenished his glass from time to time, until in the early night the trim little shopgirls flocked out into the highways in gossiping, fluttering coveys, trotting away across the illuminated asphalt, north and south to their thousand dingy destinations.

And after they had gone he would probably arouse himself to read the evening paper, or perhaps gossip with Major Belwether and other white-haired familiars, or perhaps doze until it was time to summon a cab and go home to dress.
That afternoon, however, having O'Hara and Fleetwood to give him countenance, he managed to arouse himself long enough to make Plank known personally to several of the governors of the club and to a dozen members, then left him to his fate.

Whence, presently, Fleetwood and O'Hara extracted him--fate at that moment being personified by a garrulous old gentleman, one Peter Caithness, who divided with Major Belwether the distinction of being the club bore--and together they piloted him to the billiard room, where he beat them handily for a dollar a point at everything they suggested.
"You play almost as pretty a game as Stephen Siward used to play," said O'Hara cordially.