“Nothing’s the trouble. Everything’s wonderful, Walter. But I got so much job work I can’t begin to handle it, see? I been working twenty hours a day myself, because I’m making money so fast it costs me fifty dollars every hour I take off, and I can’t afford to take off time at fifty dollars an hour, Walter, and— ”
“Whoa,” I said. “Why can’t you afford to take off time? If you’re averaging fifty an hour, why not work a ten-hour day and—Holy cow, five hundred dollars a day! What more do you want?”
“Huh? And lose the other seven hundred a day! Golly, Walter, this is too good to last. Can’t you see that? Something’s likely to happen and for the first time in my life I’ve got a chance to get rich, and you’ve got to help me, and you can get rich yourself doing it! Lookit, we can each work a twelve-hour shift on Etaoin, and—”
“On what?”
“On Etaoin Shrdlu. I named it, Walter. And I’m farming out the presswork so I can put in all my time setting type. And, listen, we can each work a twelve-hour shift, see? Just for a little while, Walter, till we get rich. I’ll—I’ll cut you in for a one-fourth interest, even if it’s my Linotype and my shop. That’ll pay you about three hundred dollars a day; two thousand one hundred dollars for a seven-day week! At the typesetting rates I’ve been quoting, I can get all the work we can—”
“Slow down again,” I said. “Quoting whom? There isn’t enough printing in Centerville to add up to a tenth that much.”
“Not Centerville, Walter. New York. I’ve been getting work from the big book publishers. Bergstrom, for one; and Hayes Hayes have thrown me their whole line of reprints, and Wheeler House, and Willet Clark. See, I contract for the whole thing, and then pay somebody else to do the presswork and binding and just do the typography myself. And I insist on perfect copy, carefully edited. Then whatever alterations there are, I farm out to another typesetter. That’s how I got Etaoin Shrdlu licked, Walter. Well, will you?”
“No,” I told him.
We’d been driving in from the airport while he talked, and he almost lost control of the wheel when I turned down his proposition. Then he swung off the road and parked, and turned to look at me incredulously.
“Why not, Walter? Over two thousand dollars a week for your share? What more do you—”