"Barrett, do you see the possibilities?"
"Do I? Didn't I see the parade? Say, I can only think when I talk. Trust me! Speaking of terms—" He looked at H. R., nodded amiably, and said, "After you, kind friend."
"You will ask our clients five dollars per day per man, they to pay for the boards, which must be artistic and approved by me. The union label will be on them. Forty per cent. goes to the artist, forty per cent. to you, and ten per cent. to the society. Don't try Valiquet's. Tackle everybody else first. I'll be here all the afternoon. Barrett, I expect you to do your damnedest!"
He rose, shook hands with young Mr. Andrew Barrett, escorted him to the door, and returned to his desk.
He sat there, thinking. He intended Barrett should fail in order that when H. R. made him succeed, later, Barrett should know to whom the credit should go, though the commissions would fall into Barrett's pocket. That would make the young man really useful.
The telephone people had not yet installed the apparatus in his office, so he went downstairs and called up Mr. Maximilian Onthemaker.
"Onthemaker?... This is H. R. speaking.... Of course I saw the papers.... Yes, all of them. Come up to my office. At once!... I can't help it; I need you—this means the front page again. If you don't want the job.... I thought you would! Remember, I'm waiting. Do you hear me? Waiting!"
The greatest stroke of political genius on the part of Louis XIV. was his rebuke: "I almost have been made to wait!"
What, wait?—H. R.?
If it had not been that taxicabs cost actual money, M. Onthemaker would have taken one. But he knew he soon would have one of his own—if the newspapers did their share.