I said sure. You have to go all the way or nowhere with these things. Besides, a drink might stop the rumbling in my stomach. "Make it a rye," I said. "Triple."
He sketched it and signed it and handed it to me, and I said, "I see what you mean. Everything you sketch, huh?" The rye was good.
Willy sighed morosely. "Anything in color. And I made my name in color work. I can't do a black and white for beans."
"Why don't you—"
"Leave off my signature?" He smiled wanly. "You know better than that, Jim."
I did. He had a big name, and that, as is the way of commerce, is what the buyers paid for. Things looked hopeless for Willy. We sat. Red got up and stretched, then adjusted her halter, into which Willy had put too much imagination. She jumped from Willy's knee to the drawing desk, and stretched out on the pad. Willy looked at her hungrily, and she smiled warmly back at him. I was beginning to get that "third party" feeling—and then it hit me.
I leaned forward excitedly. "We will make a million!" I roared.
They stared at me. Coolly. I went to the back of the chair again. After a few minutes their contemptuous stares got my neck.
"Okay, okay," I muttered. "We won't make a million."
They waited expectantly for a compatible solution. To show that I was still working on it I started talking again.