“If I’m going to be one of you,” Van Dyne repeated. “That’s just the question. Am I going to be one of you?”
“I thought we had settled all that last week,” cried McCann.
“I don’t think I told you that I would join you,” Van Dyne declared, wondering just how far he had committed himself at that last interview.
“You told me you thought you would,” McCann declared.
“Oh, maybe I thought so then,” Van Dyne answered.
The district leader was generally wary and tactful. Among people of his own class he was a good judge of men; and he owed his position largely to his persuasive powers. But on this occasion he made a mistake, due perhaps in some measure to his perception of the other’s assumption of superiority.
“And now you don’t think so?” he retorted, swiftly. “Is that what it is? Well, it’s for you to say, not me. I’m not begging any man to come into the organization if they don’t want. But I can’t waste my time any more on them that don’t want. It’s for you to say the word, and it’s now or never.”
“Since you put it that way, Mr. McCann,” said Van Dyne, “it’s never.”
“Then you don’t want to join the organization?” asked the district leader, a little taken aback by the other’s sudden change of determination.
“No,” Van Dyne replied, “I don’t.”