“Um!... Criminal case, I expect. You’re the miscreants that threw a bomb at the Czar of Russia?”
“No,” says Mark. “But we want to th-th-throw a bomb at Jehoshaphat P. Skip.”
“Say that again,” says Mr. Hamilton. “Is it a name or something to eat from Sweden?”
“Name,” says Mark; “and let’s get down to b-business. I’ll tell you what we want and you can say whether you want to d-do it or not.”
“Let her go,” says Hamilton, and we all sat down.
Mark went over all the things that had happened to us, and then for the first time I got an idea what the scheme was that brought us to Sunfield.
“Now,” says Mark, when he’d brought things up to date, “we’ve got this option on Mr. Hoffer’s stock. Skip wants to b-buy the stock. That stock’s worth twice what we paid for it, and Skip knows what it’s worth. What we want you to do is this: you dicker with him. The price we want is twelve hundred dollars, not a cent more, and not a cent less.... That is—maybe we’d b-better make him pay your fee. You charge him, however, much more than the three hundred dollars’ profit you ought to be paid. Don’t let on you’re our lawyer. You don’t need to mention any names. Just talk about clients, eh? How’ll that do? He’ll buy. No d-d-danger he won’t, that I can see. Make him pay cash down for the option, and g-git the cash before you turn it over. He’ll have it with him.”
“H’m!” says Mr. Hamilton. “Who thought up this scheme?”
“I did,” says Mark.
“Well,” says Mr. Hamilton, “I hope you and I stay friends, that’s all I’ve got to say about it. Do you have ideas like this often?”