"Vite pine! Eight million feets! You krasy?" The man stooped and swung open the little gate. "Come along mit me, unt if you trying some foolishness mit Herr Metzger, you vish you vas some blace else to have stayed avay." He paused before a closed door, and drawing himself very erect, knocked gently. A full minute of silence, then from the interior came a rasping voice:
"Who is it?"
"It is I, sir, von Kuhlmann, at your service, unt I have mit me one small poy who say he has it some logs to sell."
Again the voice rasped from behind the partition—a thin voice, yet, in it's thinness, somehow suggesting brutality: "Why should you come to me? Why don't you buy his logs and send him about his business?"
Von Kuhlmann cleared his throat nervously: "He says it iss vite pine—eight million feets."
"Show him in, you fool! What are you standing out there for?"
Von Kuhlmann opened the door and motioned Connie to enter:
"Herr Morgan," he announced, bowing low.
"Connie Morgan," corrected the boy quickly, as he stepped toward the desk and offered his hand to the small, grey-haired man, with the enormous eyeglasses, and the fierce upturned mustache. "I suppose you are Heinie Metzger," he announced.
The man glared at him, his thin nostrils a-quiver. Then, in a dry, cackling voice, bade Connie be seated, giving the extended hand the merest touch. Von Kuhlmann withdrew noiselessly, and closed the door. Metzger opened a drawer and drew forth a box of cigars which he opened, and extended toward the boy. Connie declined, and replacing the cigars, the man drew from another drawer, a box of cigarettes, and when the boy declined those he leaned back in his chair and stared at Connie through his glasses, as one would examine a specimen at the zoo.