Thompson warned his colleague with a look, and the latter subsided, puffing furiously at his pipe.
“Mr. Swift doesn’t need any press agent,” went on Thompson smoothly. “His inventions speak for themselves. But now let us get down to business. As I was saying——”
“Pardon me while I call up my business manager, Mr. Newton,” interrupted Tom. “I never transact any important business without his presence and advice. He’s over at the works, and I’ll have him here in a minute.”
CHAPTER IV
RECKLESS DRIVING
The three visitors exchanged glances. It was evident that they did not especially welcome the suggestion. Like many business men, they had the idea that inventors were a sort of dreamy impractical race, not keen at bargaining and easy to beguile in a business deal.
Still they could not decently object to a thing so obviously correct, and after a mere instant of hesitation, Thompson made a virtue of necessity.
“We should be delighted,” he said suavely.
Tom took up the telephone that rested on a table near his hand and called up the plant.
“Mr. Newton,” he announced to the operator. “Hello. That you, Ned? Come right over, will you? I’m telephoning from the house. Some gentlemen are here with a business proposition and I want you here to confer with us. All right.”
“And while we’re about it,” remarked Tom, as he put down the telephone, “I’ll have my father in, if you don’t mind. He’s something of an invalid, but he’ll be of great help in discussing the proposition.”