"Send Gillum in!" commanded Metzger, glaring at the boy, and when the Irishman appeared, he said brusquely. "Witness the signature to a contract for the sale of some logs." Arranging the papers he signed each copy with a flourish, and offered the pen to Connie.
The boy smiled. "Why, I can't sign it," he said. "You see, I'm a minor. It wouldn't be legal. It wouldn't bind either one of us to anything. If the deal didn't suit me after the logs were here, I could claim that I had no right to make the contract, and the courts would uphold me. Or, if it didn't suit you, you could say 'It is a mere scrap of paper.'"
Metzger jerked the thick glasses from his nose and glared at the boy. "What now? You mean you have no authority to make this contract? You have been jesting? Making a fool of me—taking up my time—living at my expense—and all for nothing?"
Connie laughed at the irate magnate: "Oh, no—not so bad as that. I have the authority to arrange the terms because I am a partner. It is only the legal part that interferes. Hurley, our walking boss has the power of attorney signed by my partner, who is not a minor. Hurley is authorized to sell logs and incur indebtedness for us. I will have to take those contracts up to our camp and get his signature. Then everything will be O.K."
Metzger scowled: "Why did you not have this Hurley here?"
"What, and leave a couple of hundred men idle in the woods? That would not be good business, would it? I'll take the contracts and have them signed and witnessed, and return yours by registered mail within two days."
The head of the Syndicate shot a keen sidewise glance at the boy who was chatting with Mike Gillum, as he selected a heavy envelope, slipped the two copies of the contract into it, and passed it over. Connie placed the envelope in an inner pocket and, buttoning his coat tightly, bade Metzger good-bye, and passed out of the door.
Alone in the office Metzger frowned at his desk, he drew quick, thin lined figures upon his blotting pad: "These Americans," he repeated contemptuously under his breath. "To send a boy to do business with me—a past master of business! The fools! The smug, self-satisfied, helpless fools—I know not whether to pity or to laugh! And, yet, this boy has a certain sort of shrewdness. I had relied, in case anything went wrong with our plan, upon voiding the contract in court. However, von Kuhlmann is clever. He has been this week on the field. His judgment is unerring. He is German!"
Late that evening, clad once more in his woodsman's garb, Connie Morgan sat upon the plush cushion of a railway coach, with his new leather suitcase at his feet, and smiled at the friendly twinkling lights of the farm-houses, as his train rushed northward into the night.