Again the boy shook his head. "You told me you could pay liberally for the logs if you could be sure of getting them all in one lot," he reminded. "I can get twenty-five, anywhere, and by hunting out my market I can boost it to thirty."
Metzger's frown deepened. "What is your price?" he asked.
"Fifty dollars."
"Fifty dollars!" The man rolled his eyes as if imploring high heaven to look down upon the extortion. "Ridiculous! Why the highest price ever paid was forty!"
"We'll make a new record, then," answered the boy calmly.
"Forty dollars—if you must have it," offered the man. "Forty dollars or nothing. And, even at forty, we must insist on inserting a protective clause in the contract."
"A protective clause?"
"Yes, it is this way. If we assume to pay such an outrageous price for your logs, we must insist upon being protected in case you fail to deliver. Suppose, for instance, something prevented your delivering the logs, or part of them at our mills. Say, you could deliver only four or five million. We could not pay forty dollars for them, because our price is fixed with the understanding that we are to receive eight million."
"That's fair enough," answered the boy; "we'll fix that. If we don't deliver eight million, then you take what we do deliver at twenty dollars."