“We’ve slipped a couple of extra steps down the slide, Boss.”
“Is that all?”
“Ay-ah. But we are n’t so blame’ far from the bottom, you know.”
“Give us five more months, and we may get Mart Embree’s hide to cover our lamented remains with.”
“Five months! Not on the cards, Boss. Call it three.”
Jeremy sighed. “Don’t bother me with it now,” he said testily. “I’m busy. Did n’t I specially make you a present of that worry?”
Diplomacy was not Andrew Galpin’s strong point. Most injudiciously he conceived that now was the time to advance a project which he had held in reserve, awaiting such an opening.
“Boss,” he said, “there’s another buyer in the field for the paper.”
“Who’s the crook?”
“It is n’t a crook.”