"Only when I read the map in an automobile," I answered.
"Fortunately," he assured me, "there will be little of that in my requirements. Now the honest truth: Can you work hard? Can you work like a demon if you have to?"
"Yes. Unless it has figures in it," I said.
"It hasn't," he said. "Or at least, when it has, I shall have to do those myself, for my sins. But I warn you, there's some pretty stiff work ahead. It's a labor survey of China. And I want somebody to do ten hours a day most of the time, showing how like dogs the Chinese workmen are treated."
Ten hours a day with him! I sat silent, trying to take in the magnitude of my joy.
"It's too much?" he hazarded.
"Oh!" I cried. "No. Why no!" He looked up inquiringly. "See the women in this town," I added, "who work ten hours a day and more."
"We're going to get along extremely well, then," he said, "if you don't mind my damned irritability—I beg your pardon. I'm shockingly irritable—but," he paused, leaning forward, still grave, "let me tell you, confidentially, now, that I always know it, underneath. You can't mind what I say too awfully, you know, if I put you in possession of that fact to start with. Can you?"
"I shan't mind," I said.
"Well, you will, you know," he warned me, "but that at least ought to help. I suppose it wouldn't be possible for you to go to work now? This moment?"