Anthony, poor devil, was raving at last! Since there was no one likely to ruin Anthony, the strain had developed the illusion that—or was it an illusion? Anthony had calmed these last few seconds, clinging childlike to his friend; his eyes denoted the general state of mind of a hunted doe, but there was nothing more abnormal.
"Say, kid," Johnson Boller began kindly. "You——"
"You don't understand," Anthony said hoarsely but more quietly. "I've never told you about the Dalton matter, because I've tried my best to forget the interview—but Dalton is the man who controls virtually the whole proprietary liniment market, barring only Fry's Imperial. My—my liniment," said Anthony, and there was an affectionate note in his voice which Johnson Boller had never heard before in connection with the Imperial, "is the only one he has failed to acquire."
"Yes?" said Johnson Boller, with rising interest.
Anthony smiled wanly, dizzily.
"Well, Dalton came to the office one day about five years ago, having made an appointment to meet me personally there. He wanted to buy us out, and I wouldn't hear of it—partly sentiment and partly because he didn't want to pay enough. Then he tried his usual tactics of threatening to drive Imperial off the market, and I sat down and pointed out to him just what it would cost and what it would gain him. He's a hard devil, Johnson, and he was pretty angry, yet he saw the reason in what I told him."
"Go on," said Johnson Boller.
"We parted on rather curious terms," groaned Anthony. "One might call it an armed truce, I suppose. He seemed to be willing to let matters rest as they were, and he has done just that ever since; but he told me in so many words that if ever I tried to break into his particular market, if ever, for any cause, I offended him in any way, he'd sail in and advertise me out of business."
"Can he do it?"
"He can do it," Anthony said, with pained conviction. "He can do it, because he's able to spend a million where I spend ten thousand, and once he starts Fry's Imperial Liniment is as dead as Julius Cæsar. And when he learns about this thing——"