“All right,” I said, holding out my hand to him. It was an irrational experience. We shook hands in the veiled, mysterious manner of boys sealing a life-time compact for high adventure, no more words either necessary or feasible.
But with Harbinger some further conversation seemed appropriate. So later I said to him.
“Why are you so afraid of Galt?”
“You do ask some very extraordinary questions?”
“I have a right to ask this one,” I said, “seeing that you put it upon me to refuse him the earnings. You were afraid to refuse him. Isn’t that why you gave the figures to me?”
“You will have to think what you like of my motives,” he said, with rather fine dignity, though at the same time turning red. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t learn yours as we’ve had to learn ours,” he added.
“My what?”
“That’s all,” he said, twirling about in his swivel chair and avoiding my regard.
“Why do you dislike him?”
“It isn’t that I dislike him,” he retorted, beginning to lose his temper a bit. “The thing of it is I don’t know how to treat him. He has no authority here that one can understand, get hold of, or openly respect. Yet there are times when you might think he owned the whole lot of us.”