The papers were before Mr. Bigelow, and the great brain was grappling with them; it being Mr. Babcock's part to weed out details and trouble Mr. Bigelow only with the broader facts.
“And now, Mr. Babcock,” said the head of the firm, “how are we to arrive at this?”
Mr. Babcock leaned forward and mumbled a few sentences with the air of a man habitually afraid of being overheard and caught. Mr. Bigelow's brow drew together, in such a state of concentration was the massive brain. History has not recorded the subject of these documents; whether it was Kentucky Coal or New Freighters, or the booming town of Northwest Chicago, or suburban street-railways, or one of the dozen or more growing interests that absorbed at this time the attention and some of the money of G. Hyde Bigelow & Company (to say nothing of the money of the Bigelow followers), we may never know. For at the moment when the Bigelow brows were knitted the closest, when the questions raised by the papers were about to attain a masterly and decisive solution, an office-boy entered the room—a round-eyed boy so awed by the Presence that he was visibly impatient to deliver his message and efface himself—a boy who was habitually out of breath.
“Lady t' see y'u, sir.”
Mr. Bigelow turned with some annoyance. How often had his subordinates instructed this boy to demand the card of every visitor and to lay it silently on the mahogany desk. But, on the other hand, Mr. Bigelow made it a point to rise above petty annoyances.
“Well, boy, what is the name?”
“Sh' wouldn' give 't, sir.”
The great man's expression changed slightly; it was as if he had suddenly remembered something. He turned to the desk and fingered the papers for a moment.
“We will take up this matter after lunch, Mr. Babcock.”
He spoke a shade more pompously than was his wont in dealing with his junior.