The Last Bell on the Street

The clock on the dash shows 7:49. The smudge of smoke ahead will be Robinsvale — county seat, 10.6 miles.

The needle on the gas gauge is jammed over against the E, and has been for the last five miles. The car’s a good-looking heap. Originally, it cost plenty. Now there are two overdue installments on it, and the only reason we’re still driving it is that the finance company doesn’t want it either.

We have four bits between us — and Pete’s got that. He also has a million-dollar front and a line of sales talk that would make the Statue of Liberty drop the lamp to grab a fountain pen.

Pete figures our individual financial depression is because Lady Luck has taken a powder. Pete calls her “The Dame.” He says she runs out on a guy once in a while just to see if he can take it. Just keep your chin up and keep punching doorbells until you come to the last bell on the street, and she’ll come back, Pete claims. Me, I’m not bothering about “Why.” My stomach keeps paging my throat to ask, “When do we eat?”

The old gas hog tops a hill, sputters, coughs and goes dead. Pete kicks her into neutral and starts coasting. He’s promised me we’ll eat on that last four bits, and I’m holding him to it. We’ve poured enough dough through the gas tank.

We round a turn and there’s a service station. You can tell from the way it’s painted that it’s a company service station and the kid in charge won’t have any discretion in the matter of credit. We coast right on past. The grade flattens out and the gas hog slows down. There’s a wide place in the road.

“We can leave it here, Pete.”

The old hog is barely crawling, but Pete shakes his head. “We can get her around that next bend,” he says, “and maybe The Dame will give us a tumble.”

There’s a little more slope here and the hog picks up speed. Then we see the sign, George C. Fox, Reclaimed Tires. To one side is a sheet-iron building with a sign, Mother’s Restaurant, and a couple of gasoline pumps in front.

Pete lifts his hat. “George, my boy, opportunity is about to knock on your door. Poise your index finger over the ‘No Sale’ key on your cash register. Here we come!”

“Save it,” I say, “until you’ve got a customer.”

Pete says reproachfully, “George is our customer. Stick around, Ed. This is going to be good.”

“It has to be,” I tell him.

Pete slips the key to the gas cap into the glove compartment. The gas hog limps up to the pumps.

Pete jumps out, fumbling around in his pockets, his back toward the restaurant. The door opens and a Jane comes out. She’s class, with red hair, blue eyes and a white apron. I breathe easier. Pete’s a riot with dames.

Pete hears the screen door creak. His hands are circulating through his pockets like the vanes on a windmill. “My gosh, Ed! My wallet! It’s got the key to the gas cap in it. I must have left it in that night club.”

I know it’s up to me to get his signals. I say, good and loud, “Was that hundred bucks in it?”

Pete gives me a hurt look. “Hundred bucks! It was five hundred and sixty dollars. We’ll telephone.” Then, apparently, he realizes for the first time someone’s behind him. He turns around with the old Quint smile, and freezes in his tracks.

My stomach feels cold. One look at Pete’s face, and I know the answer. He’d have made the build-up with old George C. Fox, but not with the Jane.

Her eyes are sympathetic. “There’s a telephone in the restaurant.”

Pete gives her a ghostly semblance of the Quint smile.

“That wallet,” he announces with conviction, “is gone forever. In the meantime, the cap is locked tight on my gasoline tank; I’m stalled in front of your pump.”

“Perhaps you could pull over and get a locksmith.”

“Good idea,” Pete says... “Pull her over, Ed.”

I put her in gear and let the starter drag the heap into the shade. The redhead says, “We don’t ordinarily cash checks, but perhaps father—”

Pete laughs. “Oh, we still have money. We’ll eat first and worry about the car afterward.”

I almost pull the door off its hinges getting out. I’m afraid he might grandstand that fifty cents for gas, the way he’s looking at the Jane. Pete sticks a shoulder in front of me and slows me up long enough to hold the screen door open for the girl. We follow her in and sit down at the counter. Pete looks at the menu printed over the mirror.

“Two hamburgers,” he says, “and coffee.”

“With onions,” I tell him, an eye on the price list.

“With onions,” he says.

The girl opens the icebox and starts the hamburgers sizzling. Her eyes keep playing tag with Pete’s.

“Where’s your dad?”

Pete asks.

She laughs. “Dad ducked. He thought you were someone else.” She goes to the back door and calls, “Coast is clear, dad,” and comes back to the hamburgers.

After a minute, the back door opens. The big man who comes in has work-stooped shoulders, and eyes two shades lighter than the girl’s. They match his faded blue work shirt.

The redhead says, “Dad, this man’s had the worst luck.”

The man’s bushy eyebrows crawl together. He says to Pete, “We don’t cash checks.”

“No one’s asking you to,” Pete says, sliding the four bits out on the counter.

The man gets apologetic then. “Sorry, but Arlene is always falling for some hard-luck story. I thought perhaps—”

Pete says, “I never hand out bard-luck stories,” which is the truth. “I’m annoyed over losing the key. I never have any trouble making money.”

The man says dejectedly, “Try making some for me.”

They don’t know Pete. I cross my fingers hard, hoping that what’s coming next isn’t going to interfere with the first meal I’ve had in eighteen hours.

Pete says, “Okay, make you all or any part of a hundred thousand on a fifty-fifty basis. How does that sound?”

The man’s suspicious. He doesn’t say how it sounds, but the girl laughs. “That’d be swell. Make another hundred thousand for me and—”

A car slides up outside. The girl stoops so she can look up under the awning. “Oh, my gosh, dad! It’s him! Duck!”

Fox stands there helpless. Outside I hear a car door slam. It’s half a dozen steps to the back door and “Down behind the counter,” Pete says, and Fox drops as though you’d jerked him with a string.

A guy with knife-edged creases in his trousers, a bright necktie and an off-color diamond scarf pin breezes in, says, “Hello! How’s my little strawberry patch? You’re more beautiful every time I see you. I’ve got a friend in pictures in Hollywood and—”

Pete swings around. “Hi, buddy. Who you with?”

The man stops talking and sizes Pete up. “Dan Preston, Amalgamated Distributors,” he says.

Pete slides from his stool, his right hand stuck out and all of the Quint personality going into action.

“I’m Quint — Peter R. Quint.”

They shake hands.

“Who you with?” Preston asks.

Quint doesn’t bat an eyelash. “I’m taking charge of sales for George C. Fox,” he says.

There’s a second or two of silence, broken only by the sizzling of hamburgers. The redhead’s staring, open-mouthed. I hear a noise back of the counter that could be made by Fox starting to get up, and scrape my foot against the tongue-and-groove to cover up. You got to hand it to Pete. Show him a doorbell, and he’ll punch it.

“That’s fine,” Preston says. “You can give me the order which’ll reinstate Fox under his contract. I wrote him. The factory said he either had to fish or cut bait.”

Pete takes it in his stride. “We’ll fish.”

Preston doesn’t grin any more. “The factory thinks Fox had better let another agent take over. He’s so far behind on his contract minimums now that—”

The girl interrupts indignantly. “Those minimums! Dad didn’t know anything about the tire business when he signed that contract. Your man wrote in the minimums and said—”

Preston quits kidding her. “I’m sorry, Miss Fox. I haven’t any discretion about contracts.”

Pete says, “Make out your order, brother.”

This time there’s no mistaking the sounds behind the counter. Fox is getting up. Pete goes on easily, “I’m putting some loose capital in the business.”

Pete gives Preston the eye. The sounds behind the counter quit. Preston whips an order book out of his pocket and starts writing. He’s mad, but Pete’s bid a no-trump hand, and there’s nothing Preston can do about it.

Personally, I like my hamburgers well done, but I’m afraid we won’t be there that long. I say to the redhead, “Don’t make those hamburgers too well done — and plenty of onions.”

Pete doesn’t say anything. He’s sitting there with a detached smile. I can see he’s waiting for The Dame to show her hand. Preston figures Pete wall wilt when he sees the order. He’s shoving his pencil across the order blank at a mile-a-minute clip.

It’s a dead heat. The girl slides over the hamburgers and Preston shoves the order across to Pete.

Quint doesn’t even read the order. He signs, “George C. Fox, per P. R. Quint,” with his right hand, and picks up the hamburger with his left. I grab my hamburger in both hands. Preston rips the carbon copy out of his order book, slams it in front of Pete, and says, “Remember those tires come C.O.D.”

“Sure,” Pete says. “Tell the factory to duplicate that order every ten days.” He slips Preston’s pencil into his own pocket, sticks out his right hand, and says, “Glad to have met you, Preston. Come in any time you’re down this way.”

The screen door slams behind Preston. Fox gets up from behind the counter, I shove the rest of my hamburger into my mouth.

Fox says, “You’ve got to pay for those tires.”

My coffee is scalding hot, but I gulp it down.

Pete motions toward my coffee cup. “Mind giving Ed another cup of coffee, Miss Fox?”

I can see her hand tremble as she pours in the coffee. Pete chews his sandwich leisurely. “Of course,” he says to Fox, “I’ll have to investigate the business,” and then, as he sees the bushy brows coming together, adds calmly, “In the meantime, I’ll have a talk with your banker. Where do you bank?”

Everything stops for a minute. Even the girl Stops pouring coffee.

I crook my finger in the handle of the cup, so no one can jerk it away.

“The Smith National,” Fox says.

You’d have thought Pete owned the hank, from the way he says, “Do you? That’s fine! With whom do you deal?”

That’s Pete’s sales technique. Never let the other guy get set to say “No.” Keep asking him questions or making him do something until he’s ready to sign.

Fox says dubiously, “With Duncan. He’s a friend—”

“Of the family,” the redhead interrupts.

“Well, he comes out every once in a while to—”

“Look the business over,” the redhead finishes, with her chin in the air.

“He’s human,” Fox explains. “You can talk to him. He’s the cashier.”

“Who’s the president?”

“Hooker. He’s a sourpuss.”

I see the tension is eased and take time to put cream and sugar in this cup of coffee. Quint gives his philosophy of bank borrowing. “Never do business with the human guy in a bank,” he says. “Banks keep those birds to say ‘No’ pleasantly. ‘No’ is all they can say. The only one a bank ever trusts to say ‘Yes’ is a sourpuss.”

Pete hands me a paper napkin. “Wipe your mouth off, Ed”; then to Fox, “We’ll go in your car.”

Hooker looks as though he’s reached for a piece of candy in the dark and bit into a rancid lemon. Pete breezes up with the Quint glad hand pushed out in front.

“My name’s Quint, head of the Quint Sales Company. This is my assistant, Ed Felton. We’re about to take over the distribution of Mr. Fox’s product. Later on, I’ll probably put some capital in the business. In the meantime—” and Pete slides down into the chair opposite Hooker, and motions Fox and me to chairs over against the wall.

Hooker listens for a while. Then I see his eyes swivel over to Fox. “How’d you get in touch with these men, George?”

Pete starts out, quick like, “I’ve been looking—”

Hooker says, “I want Fox to answer.”

Fox brushes the cobwebs out of his mind, “Why, I... I don’t know exactly. They just sort of dropped in and—”

Fox gets that far and bogs down. Hooker smiles, the smile of a housewife sneaking up on a sleeping fly. “George,” he says, “if you’ll kindly step outside, I have something I want to say to these gentlemen privately.”

Fox goes out, and I grip the arms of my chair. It’s coming now. Hooker waits until the door closes, then he says, “You’re high-pressure salesmen. You’re either flat broke, in love with Arlene Fox, or both. You’re slipping a fast one over on Fox, and — you’ve both been eating onions!”

Pete never hats an eyelash. He always claims you have to grab the customer’s objections and turn ’em into sales arguments, but this time it won’t work. I wish I’d walked out with Fox.

Then Pete says quietly, “You’re right, Mr. Hooker. We’re broke. I’m not in love with Arlene Fox — yet but I think I’m going to be. Fox has a sales problem. He has no more sales ability than a tapeworm. My guess is he already owes you money. If he can’t pull out, you’re hooked. I can pull him out.”

I can see Hooker’s mouth twitch. I can’t tell whether it’s expression or a gas pain.

Quint leans across the desk. “I’m the vitamin P-E-P that Fox’s business needs to get your money hack. Do you want to show your cashier how to clean up on a bad loan he’s made? If you do, just nod your head. It’s that simple.”

Pete quits talking, and we sit there listening to the clock ticking back of the banker’s desk. A moment before, Hooker’s eyes had been like diamonds. Now they are no harder than ice. He reaches for a fountain pen.

“Young man,” he says, “the fact that you didn’t lie is the best argument you’ve used.”

Pete’s shoulders move as he eases out a sigh. “As I’ve mentioned, Mr. Hooker, I’m temporarily embarrassed personally. If you could include—”

Hooker looks up from the promissory note he’s filling out. His voice is as cold as the closing of a vault door. “Fox owes this bank money. You don’t, Mr. Quint, and you’re not going to.”

The editor of the local paper is a pushover.

Pete gives him the works. Quint and Company is taking over Fox’s sales. Fox has given a whale of an order to the tire company. It isn’t to be announced just yet, but the tire company is sold on Robinsvale as a distribution center. There’s going to be a lot of advertising. The local paper is going to get a big share. Robinsvale is due for a big boom. Quint is a big shot. The reclaimed tire process makes old casings twice as strong, four times as good, eight times as safe, and only costs half as much. It’s going like a house afire.

We get rates on full-page contracts and leave the editor standing with his mouth open. Pete is sprouting sales ideas like mushrooms on a damp log. A scoutmaster lets us talk to his Eagle Scouts. The town’s leading printer welcomes Pete with open arms. They’ve got a consignment of twenty-pound all-rag bond they ordered on approval. The customer decided the stuff was too expensive and backed out. The printer is willing to make concessions. The stationery looks like a million dollars net. Pete fingers it with loving care and places an order in Fox’s name.

We get outside. Pete’s walking on air. He claps me on the back. “Ed, The Dame’s back!”

I’m not so sure. “Did you notice,” I ask him, “the names of the boys in that scout troop?”

“What about ’em?” Pete wants to know.

“One of ’em is Burt Hooker, Jr. If—”

“Forget it,” Pete interrupts. “You’re a good wheel horse, Ed, but you don’t have the mental agility which—”

“And there’s just one other thing,” I break in, “that I think we should find out about.”

“What’s that?” Pete asks.

I turn back to push open the door of the printing establishment. The man behind the counter is writing figures on a piece of paper. He looks up, and I say, “Would you mind telling me if the concern that felt it couldn’t afford that all-rag bond is a borrower from the Smith National?”

He’s puzzled. “Why,” he says, “the Smith National was the customer.”

The Dame back? Phooey! From where I stand it looks like our visitor is Old Man Trouble.

Nothing much happens for three or four days except that Pete runs my legs off on a lot of detail work. The local paper gives us a ton of free publicity. Pete Quint is a big sales engineer and advertising expert. There’s a lot said about reclaimed tires and about the strategic location of Robinsvale as a Potential jobbing center, particularly for the tire industry.

Pete sends the factory marked copies of the paper. He says it won’t hurt to let ’em know there’s a live wire on the job.

Then the tires come.

Pete has all the shrinking modesty of a steam calliope in a circus parade. He decorates the sides of the truck with posters. Then he sticks more posters on the gas hog and we start through Robinsvale’s business district. Pete won’t let me sit in the front seat. He claims Lady Luck’s there. He says The Dame’s back to stay now.

It turns out to be a two-car parade. Pete keeps driving back and forth through town. I see a guy scowling at us, and remember I’ve seen him in the cashier’s cage at the Smith National. I try to tell Pete, but Pete can’t hear me because of the noise he’s making with the horn on the gas hog.

When we finally wind up at the Fox Tire Company, Pete comes cakewalking in the door and makes a ceremony out of dusting off one of the stools.

The redhead looks at him with puzzled eyes, and Pete says, “Arlene, meet The Dame.”

“The Dame?” she asks.

“Lady Luck herself,” Pete says, bowing low. “And this is Arlene, the little girl I’ve been telling you about who—” He breaks off at the look in Arlene’s eyes and turns around.

A big man is walking in, pulling papers from his pocket. “Which one of you guys is Quint?” he asks.

Quint pushes out the old right hand. “I’m Quint. This is Ed Felton, my assistant, and over here on the stool is The Dame.”

The guy hands Pete the papers. “Warrant for your arrest,” he says, “on three counts. Unlicensed parade, antinoise-ordinance violation and blocking traffic... I don’t see no dame.”

Pete sits down.

“The reason you don’t see no dame,” I say to the law, “is because she ain’t there.”

I take a look at the beak who handles the traffic cases and don’t like him. He keeps sizing Pete up when Pete ain’t looking. When Pete looks, the judge paw’s around through the papers on his desk, looking for something that ain’t there.

I pull Pete off to one side and tell him to remember to call the guy “your honor,” and not to plead guilty until he knows what the rap is. I’ve never seen a bird so completely immune to the Quint personality as this guy.

“Now, this here complaint,” the judge says, frowning at Pete, “is on three counts.”

“I know, your honor. Let’s consider Count One. Suppose I should plead not guilty? What would happen?”

The judge paws through papers. “Cash bail one hundred dollars.”

Pete says, “Suppose I should plead guilty?”

“The fine’ll be one dollar.”

Pete’s smiling now. “I’m guilty.” He puts a buck on the desk.

“How about Count Two?” the judge asks.

“Guilty.”

“One dollar.”

Pete plunks down another buck.

“Count Three,” the judge says.

“Guilty.” I cough, and Pete adds hastily, “your honor.”

The judge says, “Ten days,” just like that.

I beat it up to the bank. Burton G. Hooker has left on his vacation. C. Ragswall Duncan, the cashier, is in charge. Mr. Duncan is very, very sorry, but the bank can do absolutely nothing. I explain that the bank’s money is tied up in those tires, that with Pete in jail, Fox can’t sell ’em.

C. Ragswall Duncan gives me the cold eye and tells me Pete has been running up bills in Fox’s name which the bank will eventually have to pay, that he thinks it’s a good thing to have Pete locked up for a while. I gather he thinks it would be a swell idea if I joined Pete in jail, and that the chief of police and the city judge have notes at his bank. The guy’s waiting for me to start something. His hand’s on the telephone. I say, “Yes, Mr. Duncan,” and tiptoe out.

It takes me two days to find out where Hooker is. I load the gas hog at Fox’s pump and start out. Halfway there, I’m following a woman in a coupé up a steep grade. I’m eating her dust when her left rear tire goes “bang.” She skids all over the road and winds up over against the edge.

She’s all alone, so I pull out the jack and make myself useful. She’s good-looking, quietly dressed, and grateful. Pete would have got her name, given her his card, talked reclaimed tires, and made a customer. I just say, “That’s all right, ma’am,” and get her on her way. I eat her dust to the top of the grade. She waves as I go by.

It’s fifteen miles on to the inn. Hooker’s out fishing when I get there. The clerk tells me where he thinks I can find him, down a steep trail to the creek.

It’s no dice.

When I get back up to the inn, sweaty and dusty, the clerk tells me Hooker fished upstream instead of down, that he came in just after I’d left, that his wife has joined him, and he’s in his room now. I get the clerk to give him a ring, and I get on the line.

It takes Hooker a minute to place me. When he does he hangs up, and the interview is over. I go out on the porch and stand there feeling as though I could walk under a snake’s belly with stilts. Then I look down and see the woman’s coupé that had the flat tire parked under a tree.

For a minute I realize how Pete feels when he says The Dame has come back, then it leaves me cold. I know it’s just The Dame’s way of kidding a guy along. But I stick around.

After a while, Hooker comes out on the porch. The woman’s with him. She recognizes me and comes over, all smiles, dragging her husband along and telling him how nice I was.

Hooker looks me over. He looks more dyspeptic than ever. “I refuse to be bothered with business when I’m on vacation, but since you’re here, sit down and tell me what it’s all about,” he says.

I feel like a guy in the death cell visiting with the executioner. There’s no use trying to put on gilt paint. I hand him cold, raw facts. Hooker listens. There’s no expression on his face. I can see his wife’s eyes twinkle. Once she looks at the old buzzard and smiles. I can’t see anything to smile about.

When I’m finished, Hooker says, “My wife brought me the local papers. I read something about the Reclaimed Tire Company selecting Robinsvale as a jobbing center. Do you know where that rumor originated, young man?”

I’m tired of trying to be diplomatic. “It’s a line Pete Quint handed the newspaper.”

“Is there any truth in it?” Hooker asks.

“Not a bit.”

“Why did he do it?”

“So he could get free publicity. He handed out a lot of hooey about how-much we were going to spend for advertising. The editor fell for it.”

“Did Mr. Quint expect to do any advertising?”

“Of course not. Why should he if he can get publicity for nothing?”

“My wife tells me your men have enlisted the aid of some Boy Scouts. She says you’re paying them to go around the streets looking over the tires on parked automobiles. When they find a worn tire, they note its position on the machine and send Quint the license number. Do you know anything about that?”

“All about it. The kids get three cents a car. If a sale is made, they get a ten-per-cent commission.”

Hooker turns to his wife. “Is that the work Junior has been doing to earn the money for his twenty-two rifle?”

She nods.

Hooker takes a letter from his pocket. It looks like a million bucks. “My wife,” he says, “brought the letters which she thought would be important. This envelope, without any return address, was outstanding because of the quality of the stationery.”

I know I’m sunk. “Sure, that’s part of the sales scheme. Get a select list of prospects and give ’em something outstanding. That’s the stationery the bank couldn’t afford. That form letter—”

“But this doesn’t seem to be a form letter.”

“That’s the nice part of it. There are only five places for a worn tire on a car; left or right front, left or right rear, and spare. We have a letter for each position. They’re electrically typed. It looks like a personal letter.”

Hooker unfolds the letter. The stationery crinkles with as much authority as a bank note. Pete Quint had worked it out before he went to jail, emphasizing the “you” idea. Hooker doesn’t need to read it to me because I know it by heart, but he reads the first few paragraphs just the same:

Hooker stares up at me over the tops of his spectacles. I’m sore. I say, “All right, what’s wrong with it? Your son wants a twenty-two rifle. We give him a chance to earn it. He’ll value it a lot more that way than if you’d bought it for him. If you’d acted on that letter, the tire on your wife’s coupe wouldn’t have folded in the middle of the grade and—” I can’t think of just what goes on from there.

Mrs. Hooker laughs. “And you could have got here half an hour sooner!”

That stops me. Then I see they’re both laughing. Hooker’s expression changes when he laughs. The old guy looks human. He looks like a man who has worries of his own and isn’t always certain that The Dame is with him. He looks... he looks like Santa Claus! He says, “Well, I guess I’d better telephone and get your partner out of jail.”

I can see, from the way he gets up, that he’s tired. He goes out and his wife says to me, the words coming out all at once, as though she had to confide in somebody, “Duncan’s been trying to undermine him with the directors for a long time. As soon as Burt left on his vacation, Duncan made an issue of this Fox loan. The directors are having a meeting tomorrow. That’s why I drove in. Oh, I was so hoping there’d be some truth in that rumor about the tire company opening a branch in Robinsvale.”

Pete Quint could have thought of something to say then. I couldn’t.

I get back the next morning. I can hardly find the tire company for the ears that are parked in front. The redhead gives a squeal and smears lipstick all over me. She’s so happy I can feel her body tremble through the print dress.

It’s ten minutes before I can get Pete to stop long enough between sales talks to even give me a tumble.

Just then a soft-spoken bird in gray butts in and wants to meet Mr. Quint. Pete spears him with a handshake.

The stranger says he’s Frank Logwitt, general manager of the Reclaimed Tire Company. He’s interested in the marked copies of the newspapers and the rush of orders from Robinsvale.

Pete is two paragraphs ahead of him. He pours words over him like salad dressing over a tomato. Pete takes him out and shows him the plant, but Logwitt doesn’t get near enough to meet Fox. Fox is too busy.

Logwitt asks, “Are you busy like this all the time, Mr. Quint?”

Quint studies his watch. “No,” he says. “Business doesn’t pick up until afternoon. This isn’t typical.”

Pete and Logwitt move off. A guy with whiskers comes up to me and says, “You’re one of the new salesmen. My name’s Stimson. I’m a director in the Smith National. I understand Fox’s loan was increased after Fox was in default and—”

Pete is selling Logwitt. It’s up to me. I remember the Pete technique. I grab the guy’s hand and pump it up and down. “Congratulations,” I say. “Look what you have done with your wisdom in using your money to build up a business in your community. You, Mr. Stimson, are in a measure responsible for this magnificent showing. The gentleman over there is the general manager of the Reclaimed Tire Company. He’s talking with my partner about putting in a factory branch and opening a whale of an account at your bank.”

It wasn’t so good as Pete could have done, but it had the Quint touch. I stop to look at his face, and know The Dame is hack.

Fifteen minutes later we’re all in the gas hog, headed for the bank — Pete, Logwitt, Stimson and me.

You’d think there was a funeral at the bank. People are walking around on tiptoe. Stimson leads us back to the president’s office and says for us to wait there. He goes through to another office and is in such a hurry he forgets to close the door. He crosses that room, opens another door, and I hear Hooker’s voice, calm and patient, but sort of tired, saying, “...felt that all that was lacking was sales ability and additional capital. I found these salesmen had ability, nerve and the stamina to fight against discouraging reverses. That they didn’t lie to me vouched for their honesty. Their physical condition was proved by the fact that” — and for a minute old Hooker’s voice sounded wistful — “they had both had onions for breakfast!”

I hear Stimson say, “Just a minute, gentlemen — just a minute,” and then the door closes.

Ten minutes later Stimson comes to the door. His grin is so wide I think he’s going to swallow his whiskers.

“Won’t you gentlemen come in,” he asks, “and meet our directors?”

We get up.

Duncan is coming out as we go in. He tries to walk past us with dignity, but it’s no dice. Pete is cakewalking along in the rear with his right arm cocked out, bowing and smiling at The Dame.

Duncan starts past on his right.

I hear the partition creak as Pete’s shoulder slams him into it.

“Make way,” Pete says — “make way for The Dame!”