"Vy, your claim for gombensation—for intellectual and moral damage. Business are business. As business man, I advise downright zumping big claim."
"Well, Mr. Schwab, I've been turning over the matter, and really I think I'll let things alone. You see, Sowinski is dead, poor wretch! and Bekovitch is degraded, and if the account were properly adjusted, and Jack's damage to the Siberian railway put on the debit side, the balance might turn out against us after all."
"Ach! zat is anozer matter—ja! you muss gonsider ze balance-sheet. Zat is business."
"You are still in business?" said Jack.
"I am in business forever. It is ze bress of my nostrils. Vargorresbondencephotography, zat is not business; it do not bay egsbenses. I am now in beacephotography. I gome here, rebresentative of Schlagintwert, to make bicturebostcardphotographs of ze French and English entente. And zen I return to ze Baltic to make photograph of our Kaiser ven he velgome ze British fleet."
"Hé!" cried Brin with a chuckle. "Welcome! It must be snap-shot—prestissimo! When your Kaiser welcome the British fleet there will need a good camera, and exposure—one-millionth second. Ho! ho!"
Later in the evening Schwab took Jack confidentially aside.
"Mr. Brown, my frient, I have somezink to say. It has been gonfided to me zat you gondemblate a gondract."
"A contract, Herr Schwab?"
Schwab guffawed.