Jake stopped grinning then and gave me a mighty sharp look.
"Lemme have a squint at it," says he, trying not to show too keen an interest in his face.
I held back a little; then I said: "Well, I don't just know as I ought to show you this. We haven't regularly put it on the market, and this can ain't a fair sample of what we can do; but so long as I sort of got the idea from you I might as well tell you. I'd been thinking over what you said about that lard of yours, and while they were taking a collection in church the other day the soprano up and sings a mighty touching song. It began, 'Where is my wandering boy to-night?' and by the time she was through I was feeling so mushy and sobby that I put a five instead of a one into the plate by mistake. I've been thinking ever since that the attention of the country ought to be called to that song, and so I've got up this missionary lard"; and I shoved the can of "Wandering Boy" under his eyes, giving him time to read the whole label.
"H—l!" he said.
"Yes," I answered; "that's it. Good lard gone wrong; but it's going to do a great work."
"That's it—good lard gone wrong"
Jake's face looked like the Lost Tribes—the whole bunch of 'em—as the thing soaked in; and then he ran his arm through mine and drew me off into a corner.
"Graham," said he, "let's drop this cussed foolishness. You keep dark about this and we'll divide the lard trade of the country."
I pretended not to understand what he was driving at, but reached out and grasped his hand and wrung it. "Yes, yes, Jake," I said; "we'll stand shoulder to shoulder and make the lard business one grand sweet song," and then I choked him off by calling another fellow into the conversation. It hardly seemed worth while to waste time telling Jake what he was going to find out when he got back to his office—that there wasn't any lard business to divide, because I had hogged it all.