"That you, Enos?" said he. "Help yourself to a chair. I'm kind of laid up for repairs."
"It's Helmerston," said Billy. "I called to talk to you about this affair with Mr. Prunty. I have some information which may be of value to you."
Pa sat as still as an image for perhaps a minute. I could almost hear his thoughts. He was anathematizing Billy mentally for butting in, but he was too good a strategist to throw away any valuable knowledge.
"Well," said he at last, "I'm always open to valuable information. Turn it loose!"
Then Billy told him all you know, and a good deal more, which I shall not here state, because it is not necessary to the scenario, and I did not understand it, anyhow. There was some awfully vivid conversation at times, though, when Pa went up into the air at what Billy had done, and Billy talked him down.
"Do you mean to say, you—you young lunatic," panted Pa, "that you've told Prunty that he's got a living corpse to deal with, when I need all the prestige I've won with him to hold my own?"
But Billy explained that he'd taken the liberty of thinking the whole thing out; and, anyhow, had merely refrained from removing a mistaken notion from Prunty's mind.
"But," said he, "you can assure him when he gets here that you are really in robust health."
"Assure him!" roared Pa. "He'd be dead sure I was trying to put myself in a better light for the dicker. I couldn't make him believe anything at all. I know Prunty."
Billy said that the psychology of the situation was plain. Mr. Prunty was convinced that Pa was in such a condition that he never could go back to the office, and could no more take sole ownership of the Mid-Continent than a baby could enter a shot-putting contest. What would they do when it came to making propositions? They would offer something that they were sure a case in the tertiary stage couldn't accept. They would probably offer to give or take a certain price for the stock. Believing that Pa wasn't in position to buy, but was really forced to sell, they would name a frightfully low price, so that when Pa accepted it perforce they would be robbing him out of house and home, almost. This was the way with these shrewd traders always, and to whipsaw a dying man would be nuts for a man like Prunty. (I am here falling into Billy's dialect when he was in deadly earnest.) Then the conversation grew mysterious again with Pa listening, and once admitting that "that would be like old Enos."