“It’s the very idea I’ve been waiting for ever since I fell into this fellow’s hands,” Phil told himself, returning the curious look of his captor with another of naive innocence. “If this doesn’t work, I may as well jump into the first river we come to.”
CHAPTER XXXVI
SUGGESTIVE FLATTERY
“Do you know,” said Phil, with a manner of meditative musing, “you remind me of something that has caused a good deal of comment all over America on a number of occasions?”
The prisoner stopped to observe the effect of his question, but not with the expectation of receiving an answer. The query was of a rhetorical character hardly calling for more of a return than a manifestation of interest. However, the effect on “Count Topoff’s” vanity moved him to answer in as matter-of-fact a manner as if he were being quizzed on a problem in arithmetic.
“No, indeed,” he said. “Is that so? How is it that I remind you of such a thing?”
“Now, I’ve got to appeal to his intelligence as well as to his vanity,” the flattery plotter mused. “I mustn’t fall down on this. I must handle it so that he can’t help reading glory for himself between every two words.”
He hesitated several moments, really for the purpose of phrasing his ideas, although he attempted to resume an impressive attitude of meditation. Then he said:
“Every now and then in America, we hear of a son of some multi-millionaire starting at the bottom of some business in order to learn it from the ground up. He sometimes dons overalls and enters the shops of a foundry or other mechanical plant. He puts himself on a level with the man who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, in order that when he reaches the top—maybe president of the company—there may be no element of the business that he won’t understand.”
Phil paused for time to consider how next to proceed. He figured also that his captor might interpose a remark of some sort that would aid him in the development of his vanity trap. But the looked-for remark proved to be more confusing than helpful.
“Boy,” said “the count,” with seeming irrelevance and casting a sharp glance at his prisoner; “have you any idea whose car you’re riding in?”