I lunched with my backer royally at the best inn in Limburg.
IV
THE ADVENTURE OF THE AMATEUR COMMISSION AGENT
My eccentric American had assured me that if I won the great race for him I need not be 'skeert' lest he should fail to treat me well; and to do him justice, I must admit that he kept his word magnanimously. While we sat at lunch in the cosy hotel at Limburg he counted out and paid me in hand the fifty good gold pieces he had promised me. 'Whether these Deutschers fork out my twenty thousand marks or not,' he said, in his brisk way, 'it don't much matter. I shall get the contract, and I shall hev gotten the advertizement!'
'Why do you start your bicycles in Germany, though?' I asked, innocently. 'I should have thought myself there was so much a better chance of selling them in England.'
LET THEM BOOM OR BUST ON IT.
He closed one eye, and looked abstractedly at the light through his glass of pale yellow Brauneberger with the other. 'England? Yes, England! Well, see, miss, you hev not been raised in business. Business is business. The way to do it in Germany is—to manufacture for yourself: and I've got my works started right here in Frankfort. The way to do it in England—where capital's dirt cheap—is, to sell your patent for every cent it's worth to an English company, and let them boom or bust on it.'