“Is he always like that?” Tommy asked Kendrick in the outer office.
“Always—when he buys something of which he is doubtful, to make himself think it will come out all right,” answered Kendrick, unsmilingly, and proceeded to make out a check for the two hundred thousand dollars as though it were for two hundred. A wonderful thing, this game of being rich, thought Tommy, to whom riches suddenly meant the slaying of a secret and the ability to make others happy.
Kendrick took the check in to the colonel for his signature, returned with it, sat down at a typewriter, and himself wrote the letter to Tommy, read it carefully, put the carbon copy of it away in a file marked “T,” signed the original with the colonel's name, “per J. B. K.,” and gave Tommy the letter with the check attached to it with a wire clip.
“Thank you,” said Tommy, very calmly. Two hundred thousand dollars!
“One moment, please. Will you kindly sign this receipt?”
Tommy kindly did so. Kendrick took it from him silently.
“Er—good afternoon?” said Tommy, who really wished to say a great deal more.
“Good afternoon!” said Kendrick, who did not.
“No man for the Tecumseh,” thought Tommy, as he walked out of the office—a successful man.
The colonel had spoken about getting the check certified. Tommy did not quite know how to go about it, but his father could tell him.