"I know," said Pryor, laconically, cheering him up. "You have that 'nobody loves me,' feeling. Nastiest feeling in the world. We all get it once in a while. I find there's only one remedy for it, and that's to stop bullying people."
"Bullying people!" shouted Burley, jumping up and glaring at his visitor. "Say that again, if you dare."
Mr. Pryor smiled faintly and sat unmoved, save that his neck seemed to rise a very little out of his stand-up collar, as the eye-piece of a microscope rises out of the tube.
"I'm a plain man, Mr. Burley," he said, imperturbably. "And I speak plainly. If you don't like plain speaking, I'd better withdraw my application."
"The hell you'd better!"
Mr. Pryor got up, everything quiet about him except his eyes.
Burley looked as if he were about to launch a thunderbolt. But the roving eyes of his visitor were now fixed upon him like points of steel.
"Sit down," said Burley, suddenly limp.
Mr. Pryor sat down very quietly, without taking his eyes off Hutchins Burley, who sat down, too, almost as if mesmerized.
"Tell you what," he said, after a while. "I need a sort of confidential assistant. A man who can keep his eyes and ears on the jump, and his pen and tongue under lock and key. Get me?"