“No, I didn't,” he answered.
Mr. Leigh calmed down as suddenly as he had flared up.
“And you did not point out to him the absurdly low overhead charge and the remarkable relation of your gross sales to your capital, and the complete adequacy of the financial and mechanical machinery of the new company to meet all emergencies, good and bad alike?”
“Well, I thought the figures spoke for themselves.”
“Thomas,” said Mr. Leigh, sternly, “figures don't speak to the average man, and often not even to the expert. The man behind the figures—that's what counts.”
An icy hand squeezed Tommy's heart. An expert at figures had paid for his education. The only figures that now came into his throbbing mind were: seventeen thousand dollars! And the man behind those figures was his own father!
“You must see Willetts again,” said Mr. Leigh, quietly. “Perhaps I'd better explain the figures to him myself, Thomas.”
“No!” cried Tommy, so peremptorily that he instantly felt compelled to soften the refusal. “I'd rather not, father. I'll see him again if he'll let me.”
“He'll have to let you,” said Mr. Leigh. He nodded to himself fully a dozen times, in the same curious way that to Tommy always seemed so unpleasantly senile. “Yes! Yes!”
“Rivington thinks”—and Tommy was conscious of a desire to soothe his father—“that the colonel will even help me to place the entire two thousand shares among friends.”