"I don't object to you personally. I—I even admit that I made a mistake in not promoting you, though I don't know what position you could have filled here that would have suited you—"
"None; because you don't realize that banks need modernizing. None! Skip all that and get back to me as your son-in-law."
Mr. Goodchild, thinking of his two plans which were his one hope, asked, abruptly:
"Are you a man of your word?"
"Since I have brains, I am. Are you?"
"I object to your methods. Your speech I might overlook, though it comes hard. I am speaking plainly. Now you are known as the Sandwich Man. That would bar you from my club and from ever becoming a really—"
"But that will stop. It will stop to-day. I have told Grace that within a month nobody will ever connect my name with sandwiches."
"Will you agree not to marry or seek to marry my daughter, or annoy us in any way—in short, if a month from now you are still famous as the organizer of the sandwiches, will you stop trying to be my son-in-law?"
"Sure thing!" promised H. R., calmly. Mr. Goodchild was distrustful and looked it, which made H. R. add, impressively: "I'll give you my word that after to-day I'll never even try to see you or Grace, or write to her, or revenge myself on you. So far as I am concerned I'll cease to exist for you. And here's my hand on it."
He held out his hand in such a manner that Mr. Goodchild took it and shook it with the warmth of profound relief. Then he said, heartfully: