"Go slow," said Appleby huskily, for Appleby was a bachelor.
"Well, watch me," said Macnooder with a wave of his hand that played among the rubies and emeralds floating in his imagination. "Bill, I'd like to put you in—I can't—that's flat. I can't! Why, Bill, if you put your hand in your pocket this moment and took out that little green wallet of yours and said: 'Mr. Macnooder, this is your account—it's nothing—I dismiss it, I tear it to pieces—you are my guest from now on; let's start right;—what will you have?' If you should say that—"
"I won't!" said Appleby, shrinking from the hypnotic caress in the financier's manner.
"If you should do that and should take out a nice new one hundred dollar bill—you have one, Bill, right in that old leather wallet—don't shrink, Bill, your alarm pains me—if you, now, here in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, John C. Green Foundation, should produce that one hundred dollar bill—slap it on the counter, shove it into my face, force it into my pocket, beg me to give you a little interest—no! No, Bill, no! I'd refuse—I'd have to refuse. Don't build up any false hopes, Bill, don't."
"I won't," said Appleby, yet already a sense of great personal loss had begun to invade him.
"All I can let you in on are the regional rights—the Lawrenceville rights—for ten years. I might, I don't say it flat,—I want to consider,—but I might extend them to Princeton. It's a gift, but I might. And do you know why I'm giving you this opportunity of a lifetime?"
"Why, Doc?"
"Because, Bill, I don't want to break you. I don't want to have to run you out of business. That's friendship, but there's more. I can use you," said Macnooder magnanimously. "You have the qualities I shall need in my future operations—I suffer from them now but I appreciate them. You will make an ideal watchdog of the dollar, and when the dollar leaves your hand, Bill, there won't be a rim left to it. Bill, let's do business—it's more than just the toothbrush, it's a whole future's open to you. Bill, the moment is yours. Choose! Fifth Avenue, a yacht, box at the opera—Lillian Russell!"
Appleby fumbled in his pocket and drew out a cigar to break the spell, and the hand that held the match trembled.
"Wall, now," he began cautiously, "to-morrow's to-morrow, and toothbrushes is toothbrushes. And say—gettin' down to tacks—who in Sam Hill ever wanted a folding toothbrush, nohow?"