“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, which was true. “I suppose I should get about twenty pounds for it.”
“I will give you twenty-five,” said Sam.
“Sam!” protested Peter. He approached the motive (as he understood it), but considered the offer reckless from a young man who contemplated matrimony.
“Twenty-five pounds,” repeated Sam firmly.
“Well,” laughed Gerald, quite unable not to laugh at the idiot’s persistence, “if you’re as keen on doing good as all that, I’ll take the offer.”
“Right,” said Sam. “I’ll settle it at once.”
He went to the chairman’s table and made out a form of assignment of copyright. He had a little knowledge of the law, and it was a dangerous thin—for the other fellow. But both Sam and Adams went home that night in a state of cherubic self-satisfaction.
“What a game?” thought Adams. “And what an ass!”
Curiously, the thoughts of Sammy Branstone were not dissimilar. He had this advantage over Adams: that Adams had read his paper and had not watched his audience all the time. Sam had watched the audience and thought twenty-five pounds a cheap price for that paper.
He slept on it, and awoke next day with confidence in his investment undisturbed, but the news which awaited him at the office shook him at first. It was one thing to see a profitable side-line in the publication of Adams’ address and another to be suddenly obliged to regard the copyright of that paper as his one sound asset. He feared, in cold daylight, that it was not quite sound enough for that.