Banneker shook his head.  “I’m here on business.  I’m a reporter with a story to get.”

“All right; it’s up to a reporter to stick until he gets his news,” agreed the other.  “You dismiss your taxi, and stay out here and dine, and I’ll run you back to town myself.  And at nine o’clock I’ll answer your question and answer it straight.”

Banneker, gazing longingly at the bright turf of the field, accepted.

Polo is to The Retreat what golf is to the average country club.  The news that Archie Densmore had a new player down for a try-out brought to the side-lines a number of the old-time followers of the game, including Poultney Masters, the autocrat of Wall Street and even more of The Retreat, whose stables he, in large measure, supported.  In the third period, the stranger went in at Number Three on the pink team.  He played rather poorly, but there was that in his style which encouraged the enthusiasts.

“He’s material,” grunted old Masters, blinking his pendulous eyelids, as Banneker, accepting the challenge of Jim Maitland, captain of the opposing team and roughest of players, for a ride-off, carried his own horse through by sheer adroitness and daring, and left the other rolling on the turf.  “Anybody know who he is?”

“Heard Archie call him Banker, I think,” answered one of the great man’s hangers-on.

Later, Banneker having changed, sat in an angled window of the clubhouse, waiting for his host, who had returned from the stables.  A group of members entering the room, and concealed from him by an L, approached the fireplace talking briskly.

“Dick says the feller’s a reporter,” declared one of them, a middle-aged man named Kirke.  “Says he saw him tryin’ to interview somebody on the Street, one day.”

“Well, I don’t believe it,” announced an elderly member.  “This chap of Densmore’s looks like a gentleman and dresses like one.  I don’t believe he’s a reporter.  And he rides like a devil.”

“I say there’s ridin’ and ridin’,” proclaimed Kirke.  “Some fellers ride like jockeys; some fellers ride like cowboys; some fellers ride like gentlemen.  I say this reporter feller don’t ride like a gentleman.”

“Oh, slush!” said another discourteously.  “What is riding like a gentleman?”

Kirke reverted to the set argument of his type.  “I’ll betcha a hundred he don’t!”

“Who’s to settle such a bet?”

“Leave it to Maitland,” said somebody.

“I’ll leave it to Archie Densmore if you like,” offered the bettor belligerently.

“Leave it to Mr. Masters,” suggested Kirke.

“Why not leave it to the horse?”

The suggestion, coming in a level and unconcerned tone from the depths of the chair in which Banneker was seated, produced an electrical effect.  Banneker spoke only because the elderly member had walked over to the window, and he saw that he must be discovered in another moment.  Out of the astonished silence came the elderly member’s voice, gentle and firm.