Barrett's smiles vanished. He shook his head.
H. R. went on, in a kindly voice: "You've done very well and I'm much pleased with your work. But you mustn't be a hog."
Barrett had made bushels of money by taking advantage of the opportunity to do so. The victorious idea was another's, the machinery was the society's, the work was done by the sandwiches. But Mr. Andrew Barrett was the salesman, the transmuter into cash. He was entitled to all he desired to make so long as he didn't raise prices. Injustice stared him in the face with smiles! Reducing his gain and smiling! H. R. would as lief get another man! Barrett forgot that he could get no business until H. R.'s astounding Valiquet's coup made the agent's job one of merely writing down names. He forgot it, but he did not forget his own successor. All he could say, in a boyishly obstinate way, was, "Well, I think—"
"You mustn't think, and especially you must not think I'm an ass. You know very well that this is only the beginning of a very remarkable revolution in the advertising business. I need your services in installing the machinery and organizing the office, details that I leave to you because you have brains. Your salary will be a hundred a week and five per cent. on all new business. After I pass on to a still higher field I will make you a present of this business for you to have and to hold till death do you part. The Barrett Advertising Agency will be all yours. It will do a bigger business every year. And if you don't like it, you may leave this minute. You are young yet. Is it settled?"
Andrew Barrett nodded.
H. R. said, seriously: "It's about time sandwiching spread. How many on the Avenue to-day?"
"Nineteen firms; one hundred and eleven men. I think—"
H. R. knew what Barrett was about to say. He therefore said it for Barrett. "Now that you have Fifth Avenue, move west and east to Sixth and Madison and Fourth and try Broadway and Twenty-third and Thirty-fourth and Forty-second—"
"I was just going to propose it to you," said Barrett, aggrievedly.
"I know you have brains. That's why you are here. I trust you implicitly. This is a man's job. There will be big money in it for you. For me—" He ceased speaking, and stared meditatively out of the window.