Almost before General Wilson had reached the hall, Bolton had turned eagerly to me.
"Come in and shut the door," he said with a quavering voice. "That gilded ass may stop to listen."
He was silent a minute as I obeyed him, and I surmised that he was turning over in his mind the possible plans by which I might be gagged. And as he motioned me to a seat his calculating eye was taking my measure with all the coolness of a butcher estimating the value of a steer.
"You are a young man," he began with an insinuating drawl.
I admitted the charge, but offered him the consolation to be drawn from the theory that I should probably get over it in time. He paid no attention to my flippant suggestion, but continued in a slow tone of ironic emphasis:
"You are old enough, though, to know that you have got to look out for your own Interests. That's what every Man must do, if he wants to keep in Business." Peter Bolton's sarcastic drawl punctuated his important words with capitals. "If you don't think enough of your Interests to look out for Yourself, nobody is going to look out for them for you."
"If you want to do me a good turn," I said with strategic frankness, "you might tell me what your business is with Big Sam."
He was not to be caught off his guard again. He paid no attention to my words, but continued with more of propitiation in his voice than I had considered possible.
"Now, you're a Man of the World--young as you are--and you have seen something of Business. You have seen the man who has given his best years to making money for the other fellow turned adrift as soon as the other fellow finds somebody who can make more money for him. That's the Gratitude of Business, young man--the Gratitude of Business. I've seen a man who made fifty thousand dollars for his employer in a trade turned out inside of six months because somebody offered to work for twenty-five dollars less a month. That's what you get when you look out for your Employer's interests instead of your Own." The depth of sarcasm in Peter Bolton's drawl was portentous.
I did not know whether to be amused or indignant at this attempt to teach me the folly of loyalty and the essential respectability of treachery. So I gave a nod of comprehension, which he took for encouragement, and he continued: