"You once told me to take no one for granted," I fumbled slowly, "if it was a question of business. There were to be no exceptions, you said." I saw the twinkle gathering in the corners of his eyes. "I've known you, Knowlton, nine months, but I don't know very much about you."
He laughed long and loud. "That's having a man's teaching come home and howl on his own doorstep!" he laughed. "Sometimes, Ted, I think you are the biggest damn fool I ever knew, and then you'll do something else, and I say, 'No, cuss it all, the boy has brains after all.'"
"Meaning that now I am in the damn fool stage?" I snorted, rather irritated. He had a way of making one feel as if he held one in his hand.
"It penetrates," he shouted. "The boy is getting intelligent again," and he laughed some more. "Ted," he said, growing instantly serious, "since I earned my first dollar, you are the only man who has ever to my face doubted my honesty." He went off into a laugh again. "And to think," he roared, "that I promised myself that I'd bust the first one who did on the nose."
I pulled at my pipe, waiting for him to finish. I was conscious of an unpleasant glow at the back of my neck.
"Ted, you raised this issue. Let's have it out." I waved my pipe deprecatingly. "No, sir," he went on, "you asked for a dog fight. We'll have one. Have you ever studied the books of the company?"
"No," I muttered. "It wouldn't do me any good if I did. I don't know bookkeeping."
A trace of a grin returned to his face. "Well, you can hire chartered accountants to do it for you," he said. "If ever you do look at them, you will discover that I am a salaried man and haven't one penny interest in this company except the professional one of making good on a job."
I was out of my depth and lacked the technical vocabulary to make a suitable reply.
"Now, Ted, if we do put over this new proposition, all it will mean to me will be a letter of thanks from your father. I mean, legally speaking, I'll have no special claims for anything I do. I have no financial interest at stake except the purely human one of making a good job a better one."