“You needn’t bother to tell me anything about the case,” went on the younger Harding. “I accidentally overheard all that you said. Now, Roy, my father has stated the case to you correctly. I’ve got a chance to make money with aeroplanes if I can only get hold of a new model. You’ve got just what I want.”
“Come to the point, my boy, come to the point,” urged his father.
“I’m getting there, ain’t I?” snarled the dutiful son. “Well, Roy, you’re in pretty tight straits. We can foreclose on that mortgage any day we want to. But we won’t do it if you give us a square deal. Forget the government. Make a deal with us consigning to me the right to manufacture and exhibit those aeroplanes and I’ll set aside that mortgage and give you a thousand dollars to boot.”
“And suppose I won’t accept that offer?” asked Roy, slowly.
“Then we shall have to go ahead and foreclose. We want that land anyhow, but I am even more anxious to set up my son in a paying business,” exclaimed old Harding. “Our offer is a fair one. It amounts to giving you six thousand dollars for a thing of canvas, wire and clockwork.”
“Rather more than that, sir,” said Roy, in a steady voice, although he was inwardly blazing.
“Well, what do you say?” asked Fanning, eagerly. “We’ll draw up the papers right now if you say so.”
But Roy was learning fast. He knew that the offer just made him had been an inadequate one.
“I’d like to have time to think it over,” he said, hesitatingly.
“Take all the time you want,” said old Harding, with a wave of his shrivelled, claw-like hand.