"We will not say twenty-five thousand! Let me go!"
"Now, now, now!" pleaded Mr. Goble. "Be sensible! Don't get all worked up! Say, do have a good cigar!"
"I won't have a good cigar!" shouted Mr. Pilkington.
He detached himself with a jerk, and stalked with long strides up the stage. Mr. Goble watched him go with a lowering gaze. A heavy sense of the unkindness of fate was oppressing Mr. Goble. If you couldn't gyp a bone-headed amateur out of a piece of property, whom could you gyp? Mr. Goble sighed. It hardly seemed to him worth while going on.
IV
Out in the street Wally had overtaken Jill, and they faced one another in the light of a street lamp. Forty-first Street at midnight is a quiet oasis. They had it to themselves.
Jill was pale, and she was breathing quickly, but she forced a smile.
"Well, Wally," she said. "My career as a manager didn't last long, did it?"
"What are you going to do?"
Jill looked down the street.