"Here are my terms," proceeded Norman. "You are to pay me forty thousand a year for five years—unless I open an office or join another firm. In that case, payments are to cease from the date of my re-entering practice."
Lockyer leaned back and laughed benignantly. "My dear Norman," he said with a gently remonstrant shake of the head, "those terms are impossible. Forty thousand a year! Why that is within ten thousand of the present share of any of us but you. It is the income of nearly three quarters of a million at six per cent—of a million at four per cent!"
"Very well," said Norman, settling back in his chair. "Then I stand pat."
"Now, my dear Norman, permit me to propose terms that are fair to all——"
"When I said I stood pat I meant that I would stay on." His eyes laughed at Lockyer. "I guess we can live without Burroughs and his dependents. Maybe they will find they can't live without us." He slowly leaned forward until, with his forearms against the edge of his desk, he was concentrating a memorable gaze upon Lockyer. "Mr. Lockyer," said he, "I have been exercising my privilege as a free man to make a damn fool of myself. I shall continue to exercise it so long as I feel disposed that way. But let me tell you something. I can afford to do it. If a man's asset is money, or character or position or relatives and friends or popular favor or any other perishable article, he must take care how he trifles with it. He may find himself irretrievably ruined. But my asset happens to be none of those things. It is one that can be lost or damaged only by insanity or death. Do you follow me?"
The old man looked at him with the sincere and most flattering tribute of compelled admiration. "What a mind you've got, Frederick—and what courage!"
"You accept my terms?"
"If the others agree—and I think they will."
"They will," said Norman.
The old man was regarding him with eyes that had genuine anxiety in them. "Why do you do it, Fred?" he said.