The secretary looked Jimmy over from head to foot. “I don’t know what your game is, young man, but I think you’re a damn fool.”
“If you didn’t think so much you’d get along better,” Jimmy retorted. “Will you tell him I’m here or won’t you?”
Instead of making Mr. Hope angry, this seemed to strike him as amusing, for he smiled. “If you’ll give me some idea of why you want to see him, and why he should take his time to see you, I’ll tell him, yes.”
A flash of inspiration came to Jimmy. “You tell him I know a way to make glass that will only use one-quarter as much coal for fuel as he uses now. That’s important enough, isn’t it? And tell him it won’t take me five minutes to explain it, either.”
Mr. Leffingwell Hope looked at Jimmy as if he thought the visitor was insane. Then he smiled again his nasty smile. “All right,” he said. “If he’s not too busy I’ll tell him exactly what you say. And I don’t think he’ll be interested in the least.”
“I don’t care what you think, so long as you tell him,” said Jimmy; and he sat down on the bench again to wait as the secretary departed.
Mr. Leffingwell Hope revolved this extraordinary interview in his mind as he went back to see his employer. A great curiosity consumed him to know what it was this remarkable youth from the country had to say, so that he almost hoped Mr. Wentworth would see his unknown visitor.
As luck would have it for Jimmy, the president of the Wentworth Glass Company was not in the least busy at that particular moment. As a matter of fact, he was waiting for an expected visit from his daughter. It did not promise to be particularly pleasant, for she had just telephoned him she was coming down to get a check he had only that morning at breakfast told her she could not have.
All of which had made the company’s chief executive decide that he would do no business that morning, for in his present perturbed state of mind whatever business decisions he made probably would be ill-advised. So when his secretary appeared with this unique tale of an unknown youth who promised to tell him in five minutes how to revolutionize completely his business, Mr. Wentworth welcomed the diversion. He smiled quizzically, and directed Mr. Leffingwell Hope to show the young man in at once.
“Mr. Wentworth will see you now,” said the secretary sourly, reappearing at the little wooden gate.