I glances at him curious. And, say, with that set, hard look in them narrow eyes, and the saggy droop to his mouth corners, he's almost pathetic. For the first time since he'd drifted across my path I didn't feel like pitchin' him down the stairs.
"Well, well!" says I soothin'. "Maybe you have. But you don't force 'em on folks, do you? That ain't the point, though. The question before the house is about that——"
"Suppose I hand back Twombley-Crane's name," says he, "and try another?"
I shakes my head decided. "No dodgin'," says I. "That point was covered in Pyramid's gen'ral directions. If you do it at all, you got to take the list as it runs. But what's a picture more or less? All you got to do is wrap it up, ship it to Twombley-Crane, and——"
"I—I couldn't!" says J. Bayard, almost groanin'. "Why, I've disliked him for years, ever since he sent out that cold no! I've always hoped that something would happen to bend that stiff neck of his; that a panic would smash him, as I was smashed. But he has gone on, growing richer and richer, colder and colder. And when I got this sketch away from him—well, that was a crumb of comfort. Don't you see?"
"Kind of stale and picayune, Steele, it strikes me," says I. "Course, you're the doctor. If you'd rather see all them other folks that you dislike come in for a hundred and fifty thousand apiece, with no rakeoff for you—why, that's your business. But I'd think it over."
"Ye-e-es," says he draggy. "I—I suppose I must."
With that he shakes his shoulders, gets on his feet, and walks out with his chin well up; leavin' me feelin' like I'd been tryin' to wish a dose of castor oil on a bad boy.
"Huh!" thinks I. "I wonder if Pyramid guessed all he was lettin' me in for?"
What J. Bayard would decide to do—drop the whole shootin' match, or knuckle under in this case in the hopes of gettin' a fat commission on the next—was more'n I could dope out. But inside of an hour I had the answer. A messenger boy shows up with a package. It's the sketch from Steele, with a note sayin' I might send it to Twombley-Crane, if that would answer. He'd be hanged if he would! So I rings up another boy and ships it down to Twombley-Crane's office, as the easiest way of gettin' rid of it. I didn't know whether he was in town or not. If he wa'n't, he'd find the thing when he did come in. And while maybe that don't quite cover all the specifications, it's near enough so I can let it pass. Then I goes out to lunch.