“Fifty-fifty nothing! I’m the brains of this concern, and the brains of a concern always gets paid highest. Look at Henry Ford! Look at the Archbishop of Canterbury!”
“Do you mean to say,” demanded Dolly, “that if Soapy was sitting in with the Archbishop of Canterbury on a plan for skinning a sucker the archbish wouldn’t split Even Stephen?”
“It isn’t like that at all,” retorted Mr. Twist with spirit. “It’s more as if Soapy went to the Archbishop of Canterbury and asked him to slip him a scheme for skinning the mug.”
“Well, in that case,” said Mr. Molloy, “I venture to assert that the archbishop would simply say to me, ‘Molloy,’ he’d say——”
Dolly wearied of a discussion which seemed to her too academic for the waste of valuable moments.
“Sixty-forty,” she said brusquely.
“Seventy-thirty,” emended Chimp.
“Sixty-five-thirty-five,” said Mr. Molloy.
“Right!” said Chimp. “And now I’ll tell you what to do.” I’ll give you five minutes first to see if you can think of it for yourself, and if you can’t, I’ll ask you not to start beefing because it’s so simple and not worth the money.”
Five minutes’ concentrated meditation produced no brain wave in Mr. Molloy, who, outside his chosen profession of selling valueless oil stock to a trusting public, was not a very gifted man.