'I think you had better go back to the office,' Boice broke in.
'Shortly. I have no intention of leaving you in the lurch, Mr Boice. But first I have business here.'
'You have business!'
'Yes.' Humphrey opened the large envelope. 'Here, McGibbon, is your note to Henry for one thousand dollars, due in November.'
Before their eyes, deliberately, he tore it up, leaned over McGibbon's legs with an, 'I beg your pardon!' and dropped the pieces in the waste-basket. Next he produced a folded document engraved in green and red ink. 'Here,' he concluded, 'is a four per cent, railway bond that stands to-day at a hundred two and a quarter in the market. That's our price for the Gleaner.'
McGibbon's nervous eyes followed the movements of Humphrey's hands as if fascinated. During the hush that followed he sat motionless, chin on breast. Then, slowly, he drew in his legs, straightened up, reached for the bond, turned it over, opened it and ran his eye over the coupons, looked up and remarked:—
'The paper's yours.'
'Then, Mr Boice,' said Humphrey, 'the next issue of the Gleaner will be published by Weaver and Calverly, and the stories you object to will run their course.'
But Mr Boice, creaking deliberately over the floor, was just disappearing through the doorway.'