“Since I last saw you. Now that I’ve got the hang of it, I can do an editorial in the morning, another in the afternoon, a third in the evening. Two and a half days a week will turn the trick. That leaves the rest of the time for the other special jobs.”
“You won’t live out the six months.”
“Insure my life if you like,” laughed Banneker. “Work will never kill me.”
Marrineal, sitting with inscrutable face turned half away from his visitor, was beginning, “If I meet you on the salary,” when Banneker broke in:
“Wait until you hear the rest. I’m asking that for six months only. Thereafter I propose to drop the non-editorial work and with it the salary.”
“With what substitute?”
“A salary based upon one cent a week for every unit of circulation put on from the time the editorials begin publication.”
“It sounds innocent,” remarked Marrineal. “It isn’t as innocent as it sounds,” he added after a penciled reckoning on the back of an envelope. “In case we increase fifty thousand, you will be drawing twenty-five thousand a year.”
“Well? Won’t it be worth the money?”
“I suppose it would,” admitted Marrineal dubiously. “Of course fifty thousand in six months is an extreme assumption. Suppose the circulation stands still?”