I told him what he could do with his demonstration, and I told him what he could do with his generals. The high school boy grinned when I said that. He must have been old enough to have served in the army.
The generals were crimson. You don't get that kind of talk where they worked. But the old man was unperturbed. "Let's make that one sentence a paragraph. Give these gentlemen a demonstration as effective as the last—and ten minutes after, if you like, you can walk out of here free as the air."
I jumped at that. "Is that straight? If I do it again you'll let me loose?"
He nodded. "If you really want to."
I persisted. "Straight, now? On your word of honor?"
He wasn't lying. "If you want my word you have it."
I grinned all over like a dog. "Bring on your fans, or whatever you have cooked up."
The young man went out and came right back in with a little cartload of electric fans. Either they had too many for general use, or someone had very little imagination. Come summer, with Detroit ninety in the shade, they were going to miss their ventilation. Me, I was going to be a long way from the Federal Building. He set the fans on the desk, and the generals craned stork-like to see what was going on. The old man bowed to them.
"Name one, gentlemen. Any one you like." They named the middle one again.