"Five hundred reams," repeated the other, slowly, making a memorandum in a little book that he carried. "And the other lot we'll wait about, eh? Paper is not very steady. It's gone off a sixteenth since Thursday."
This conversation only served to infuriate still more the visitor who stood waiting to pour out his wrath. Were these men wasting time over fractions of a cent in the price of stock, just after they had rejected one of the greatest romances of modern times!
With the precision of a duplex machine both partners finally looked up from the table at the young man.
"Mr. Shirley Roseleaf?" said Mr. Slashem, interrogatively, glancing at the card that the office boy had brought.
"Yes, sir!" was the sharp and disdainful reply.
"We need nothing in your line," interrupted Mr. Cutt. "I suppose Mr. Trimm has our other order well under way?"
The look of indignant protest that appeared in Roseleaf's face caused Mr. Slashem to speak.
"This is not Mr. Roseberg," he explained. "My partner took you for an agent of our bookbinder," he added.
The novelist thought his skin would burst.