“As if you didn't know. Look here, you're not talking to old Broderson. Wake up, Ruggles. What's all this talk in Genslinger's rag about the grading of the value of our lands this winter and an advance in the price?”
Ruggles spread out his hands with a deprecatory gesture.
“I don't own the 'Mercury,'” he said.
“Well, your company does.”
“If it does, I don't know anything about it.”
“Oh, rot! As if you and Genslinger and S. Behrman didn't run the whole show down here. Come on, let's have it, Ruggles. What does S. Behrman pay Genslinger for inserting that three-inch ad. of the P. and S. W. in his paper? Ten thousand a year, hey?”
“Oh, why not a hundred thousand and be done with it?” returned the other, willing to take it as a joke.
Instead of replying, Annixter drew his check-book from his inside pocket.
“Let me take that fountain pen of yours,” he said. Holding the book on his knee he wrote out a check, tore it carefully from the stub, and laid it on the desk in front of Ruggles.
“What's this?” asked Ruggles.