He bumped into Victor Burns just outside the banker’s office, and the collision brought him back to his surroundings and the realisation of his friend’s laughing protest.
“Say, you great unmitigated boob, with your two yards of meat, ain’t there room for an ounce or two like me on the same earth?”
McLagan laughed.
“Ounce or two? Say—when two folks collide on the sidewalk it mostly seems to me occasion for discussion. Who is it has right of way? The feller using the sidewalk for its original purpose, or the feller standing around with a figger calculated to set an oil man yearning? I’ve got five minutes for a yarn in your office.”
Burns smiled up into the twinkling eyes.
“Come right in,” he said. “I’ve mostly got five minutes any time of day for the man who reckons to flood Beacon out with oil.”
They passed into the bank and to the private office. McLagan perched his great bulk on the desk and grinned down on his still standing friend.
“Just sit around, Victor,” he said, while the other waited for the purpose lying behind this sudden and unexpected visit. “I want you to talk, to yarn in your own sweet way about the darn stuff you’re here to deal in. I want you to tell me all you know about the stuff. Its grades. Its colours. And the localities where the colours are found, or have been found. I want you to lay bare your golden soul to me the same as from time to time I’ve told you the juicy details of the stuff I spend my life chasing. Can you do it in ten minutes?”
“Not in ten weeks.”