I assured him I had been deeply interested.
“Pretty slick idea of yours, that dummy company, Mr. Paret. Go ahead and organize it.” He rose, which was contrary to his custom on the departure of a visitor. “Drop in again. We'll talk about the books.”...
I walked slowly back reflecting on this conversation, upon the motives impelling Mr. Jason to become thus confidential; nor was it the most comforting thought in the world that the artist in me had appealed to the artist in him, that he had hailed me as a breather. But for the grace of God I might have been Mr. Jason and he Mr. Paret: undoubtedly that was what he had meant to imply... And I was forced to admit that he had succeeded—deliberately or not—in making the respectable Mr. Paret just a trifle uncomfortable.
In the marble vestibule of the Corn National Bank I ran into Tallant, holding his brown straw hat in his hand and looking a little more moth-eaten than usual.
“Hello, Paret,” he said “how is that telephone business getting along?”
“Is Dickinson in?” I asked.
Tallant nodded.
We went through the cool bank, with its shining brass and red mahogany, its tiled floor, its busy tellers attending to files of clients, to the president's sanctum in the rear. Leonard Dickinson, very spruce and dignified in a black cutaway coat, was dictating rapidly to a woman, stenographer, whom he dismissed when he saw us. The door was shut.
“I was just asking Paret about the telephone affair,” said Mr. Tallant.
“Well, have you found a way out?” Leonard Dickinson looked questioningly at me.