Chimp stared at him incredulously.
"To-night? You thig I'm going out to-night with this code of mine, to clibe through windows and be run off my legs by ..."
"But, Chimpie, there's no danger of that now. We've got everything set. That guy Hugo and his friend are going to London this morning, and so's the other fellow. You won't have a thing to do but walk in."
"Oh?" said Chimp.
He relapsed into silence, and took a thoughtful sniff at the jug. This information, he was bound to admit, did alter the complexion of affairs. But he was a business man.
"Well, if I do agree to go out and risk exposing this nasty, feverish code of mine to the night air, which is the worst thig a man can do—ask any doctor...."
"Chimpie!" cried Mr. Molloy in a stricken voice. His keen intuition told him what was coming.
"... I don't do it on any sigsdy-forty basis. Sigsdy-five—thirty-five is the figure."
Mr. Molloy had always been an eloquent man—without a natural turn for eloquence you cannot hope to traffic successfully in the baser varieties of oil stocks; but never had he touched the sublime heights of oratory to which he soared now. Even the first few words would have been enough to melt most people. Nevertheless when at the end of five minutes he paused for breath, he knew that he had failed to grip his audience.
"Sigsdy-five—thirty-five," said Chimp firmly. "You need me, or you wouldn't have brought me into this. If you could have worked the job by yourself, you'd never have tode me a word about it."