"Well, I'll be damned!" said Mulvaney.
And on that note of sincere (if profane) admiration, the department heads disappeared to divvy up the disputatious shipment. With an air of "I told you so!" Old Mac turned to a rather acid-looking Grimper.
"Y' see, Mr. Grimper? Indeespenseeable, that's whut he is! Ye maun do weel f'r to reconsider this motter—"
But there was a streak of mule six feet tall and two feet wide in the Federal man. He sniffed down his long, thin nostrils and studied Hank through his pince-nez with detached interest.
"Hrrumph!" he hrrumphed. "Very interesting, but not at all new, you know. Hardly mathematics at all, in fact. A numerical paradox based on an old Arabian legend, if I am not mistaken—"
I did what Flatbushers would call a "slow berl." In other words, I was boined up. But while I was still striving for words, young Johnny Day, who had entered from his office, came charging to Hank's defense.
"Maybe it's not mathematics," he raged, "in the pure sense. But it's something more valuable—common sense! Any man who can pop up with a quick answer to a problem like that is a handy guy to have around. You are an efficiency expert, Mr. Grimper, but you had no solution to offer—"
Grimper's lean jaw tightened. His eyes grew as cold as a ditchdigger's ears in Siberia. Whatever slow beginnings of humanity might have been wakening in his bosom died now.
"I am sorry, gentleman," he said in a tone of finality which meant he wasn't at all, "but I am not convinced. I presume, Mr. MacDonald, you do want this Government order?"