The visitors offered to shake hands. Tom thus greeted Thompson and Bragden, but when Hankinshaw also held out his hand Tom was very busy with some papers and did not seem to see it.
“Well,” said Thompson, when cigars had been lighted, though Hankinshaw clung to his malodorous pipe, “how about those figures? Let’s know the worst. You’ll remember what I said about cutting them to the bone.”
“There wouldn’t be much nourishment for us if we didn’t leave some meat on them,” remarked Tom, with a smile; “but we’ve cut as close as we can and yet leave ourselves a reasonable profit. Mr. Newton has the figures. Go ahead, Ned.”
Ned handed to each of the three men a duplicate sheet of the proposed contract.
“Those are our figures,” he said. “As you see, we make the total sum twenty-six thousand dollars.”
“Twenty-six thousand dollars!” exclaimed Thompson, with a well simulated start of surprise, while Bragden held up his hands as though calling on heaven to witness the outrageous price.
“That’s the figure,” said Ned firmly, “and if you’ve done any calculating at all you must know, that they are reasonable.”
“Looks as though you were trying to bleed us white,” growled Hankinshaw.
“We don’t bleed anybody,” put in Tom coldly. “Our reputation in the trade is too valuable for us to indulge in any such tactics.”
“I should think that twenty thousand dollars would have been the extreme outside price,” objected Thompson.