“Can’t it?” ejaculated Ilam.
“We shall take fifteen thousand pounds at the gates to-day,” said Carpentaria. “The highest attendance in any one day at the Paris Exhibition of 1900 was six hundred thousand. Do you imagine we can’t equal that? We shall surpass it, sir. Wait for our August fêtes. Wait for our Congress of Trade Unions in September, and you will see! The average total attendance at the last three Paris exhibitions has been forty-five millions. We hope to reach fifty millions. But suppose we only reach forty millions. That means two million pounds in gates alone; and let me remind you that the minor activities of this show are self-supporting. Why, the Chicago Exhibition made a profit of nearly a million and a half dollars. Do you suppose we can’t beat that, with a city of six million people at our doors, and the millions of Lancashire and Yorkshire within four hours of us?”
“But Chicago was State-aided,” Mr. Smithers ventured.
“State-aided!” cried Ilam. “Chicago was the worst-managed show in the history of shows, except St. Louis. If the State came to me I should—I should——”
“Offer it a penny to go away and play in the next street.” Carpentaria finished his sentence for him.
“You interest me extremely,” said the journalist. “And now, as to the number of your employés.”
He chuckled to himself with glee at the splendid interview he was getting out of Carpentaria and Ilam as they obligingly responded to his queries. It was Ilam who at last revolted, and insisted that he must descend.
“Now for my condition,” said Carpentaria.
“Let’s have it,” said the journalist.
“You asked us to talk to you and we have talked to you. The condition is that you regard all you have heard up here as strictly confidential—mind, all! You tell no one; you print nothing..Remember, you are an honourable man.”