"Not positively."
"I won't take the chance."
"Why not? So you're cancelled. Is that the end of the world?"
"I won't be cancelled," Lennox said grimly.
"No, I guess not. You won't let anything be cancelled, will you, Jake?"
"Nobody's going to end anything for me except me."
"And you won't ever end anything."
"Why should I?" Lennox exclaimed impatiently. "I like what I've got. I'm thirty-five, Sam. I've come a hell of a long way from a kid telegrapher counting words in Islip, Long Island. What kind of a chicken-gut would I be to let it fall apart?"
"This I don't follow," Cooper said plaintively. "You mean the end of 'Who He?' is the end of everything? Exit Jordan Lennox, homeless, friendless, trudging back to that clam-shack in Islip, a broken man...."
"For God's sake, will you level with me! I've had a hell of a day and I don't feel like yakking it up. Who am I fighting, Sam? How am I going to fight? Jesus Christ on camera!" Lennox pointed again to the struggling hat. "I'm like that amateur tiger ... banging my brains out against nothing."