"I did want to hear you laugh because some instinct told me there would be music in it," he assured her. "Now I do want to hear you laugh again, and often, because I know it."
When he had said good-night at her door and had walked across to the Brevoort cab-stand at Eighth street, he took a taxi'. During the drive home he thought only once of Loraine Haswell. "I must see more of Miss Terroll," he informed himself. "She is decidedly interesting."
Hamilton Burton shoved back a mass of papers and smiled across his desk at his secretary.
"Carl, do you chance to recall what General Forrest of the late Confederate States of America had to say on the subject of strategy?" Bristoll stretched his arms above his head and leaned back in his chair, grateful for a moment of relaxation after two hours of application.
"I believe he reduced military science to the simple proposition of 'gettin' thar fust with the most men,' didn't he?"
"That was his correct formula—and finance has its points of similarity."
"Is the comment general, or has it a specific bearing?"
"Quite specific. Do you remember my prophecy a short while back? I reminded you that the coin of big business bore on one face the image and superscription of Cæsar Augustus Malone—and on the reverse my own poor stamp."
The secretary nodded.