“Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning,” answered E. H. Merriwether, and looked about the room.

No girl!

It began to irritate him. The man intensified the feeling by speaking very deliberately, as one to whom time is no object:

“Will you not be seated, Mr. Merriwether?”

“I am a very busy man,” began the autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad.

“Sit down, anyhow,” imperturbably suggested the man.

The autocrat sat down. He said, “But please understand that.”

“I won't keep you any longer because you are sitting. Shall we get down to business?”

“Yes.”