“There’s no time to be anything else,” replied the Judge. “And why shouldn’t we be? We simply state facts to you. A great commercial transaction, involving profits to everybody, is outlined before you. It happens that by my recommendation you are in a place where you can embarrass its success, for a minute or two, if you have a mind to. But why in God’s name you should have a mind to, or why you take up time by pretending to be offish about it, is more than I can make out. Damn it, sir, you’re not a woman, who wants to be asked a dozen times! You’re a man, lucky enough to be associated with other men who have their heads screwed on the right way, and so don’t waste any more time.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Horace, “I haven’t thanked you for recommending me.”
“You needn’t,” replied the Judge, bluntly. “It was Tenney’s doing. I didn’t know you from a side of sole-leather. But he thought you were the right man for the place.”
“I hope you are not disappointed,” Horace remarked, with a questioning smile.
“A minute will tell me whether I am or not,” the New York man exclaimed, letting his fat hand fall upon the table. “Come, what is your answer? Are you with us, or against us?”
“At all events not against you, I should hope.”
“Damn the man! Hasn’t he got a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in him?—Tenney, you’re to blame for this,” snapped Wendover, pulling his watch from the fob in his tightened waistband, and scowling at the dial. “I’ll have to run, as it is.”
He rose again from his chair, and bent a sharp gaze upon Horace’s face.
“Well, young man,” he demanded, “what is your answer?”
“I think I can see my way to obliging you,” said Horace, hesitatingly. “But, of course, I want to know just how I am to stand in the—”