“Who are the ‘we’?”
“Well, Pete Wendover and me are about the only people you’re liable to meet around the premises, I guess. There are some other names on the books, but they don’t amount to much. We can wipe them off whenever we like.”
“I notice that this company has paid no dividends since it was formed.”
“That’s because of the expense of building. And we ain’t got what you may call fairly to work yet. But it’s all right. There is big money in it.”
“I daresay,” observed Horace. “But, if you will excuse the remark, I seem to have missed that part of your statement which referred to my making something out of the company.”
The hardware merchant allowed his cold eyes to twinkle for an instant. “You’ll be taken care of,” he said, confidentially. “Don’t fret your gizzard about that!”
Horace smiled. It seemed to be easier to get on with Tenney than he had thought. “But what am I to do; that is, if I decide to do anything?” he asked. “I confess I don’t see your scheme.”
“Why, that’s curious,” said the other, with an air of candor. “And you lawyers have the name of being so ’cute, too!”
“I don’t suppose we see through a stone wall much farther than other people. Our chief advantage is in being able to recognize that it is a wall. And this one of yours seems to be as thick and opaque as most, I’m bound to say.”
“We don’t want you to do anything, just now,” Mr. Tenney explained. “Things may turn up in which you can be of assistance, and then we want to count on you, that’s all.”