Part 32

Orde did not remember having said so, but he nodded.

“Vell, if you gif us a bond secured with stock in the new company, that would be satisfactory to us.”

Orde's face cleared.

“Do you mean that, Mr. Heinzman?”

“Sure. Ve must haf some security, but ve do not vish to be too hard on you boys.”

“Now, I call that a mighty good way out!” cried Orde.

“Make your contract out according to these terms, then,” said Heinzman, handing him a paper, “and bring it in Monday.”

Orde glanced over the slip. It recited two and a quarter as the agreed price; specified the date of delivery at Heinzman and Proctor's booms; named twenty-five thousand dollars as the amount of the bond, to be secured by fifty thousand dollars' worth of stock in the new company. This looked satisfactory. Orde arose.

“I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Heinzman,” said he. “I'll bring it around Monday.”

He had reached the gate to the grill before Heinzman called him back.

“By the vay,” the little German beamed up at him, swinging his fat legs as the office-chair tipped back on its springs, “if it is to be a stock company, you vill be selling some of the stock to raise money, is it not so?”

“Yes,” agreed Orde, “I expect so.”

“How much vill you capitalise for?”

“We expect a hundred thousand ought to do the trick,” replied Orde.

“Vell,” said Heinzman, “ven you put it on the market, come and see me.” He nodded paternally at Orde, beaming through his thick spectacles.

That evening, well after six, Orde returned to the hotel. After freshening up in the marbled and boarded washroom, he hunted up Newmark.

“Well, Joe,” said he, “I'm as hungry as a bear. Come on, eat, and I'll tell you all about it.”

They deposited their hats on the racks and pushed open the swinging screen doors that led into the dining-room. There they were taken in charge by a marvellously haughty and redundant head-waitress, who signalled them to follow down through ranks of small tables watched by more stately damsels. Newmark, reserved and precise, irreproachably correct in his neat gray, seemed enveloped in an aloofness as impenetrable as that of the head-waitress herself. Orde, however, was as breezy as ever. He hastened his stride to overtake the head-waitress.

“Annie, be good!” he said in his jolly way. “We've got business to talk. Put us somewhere alone.”

Newmark nodded approval, and thrust his hand in his pocket. But Annie looked up into Orde's frank, laughing face, and her lips curved ever so faintly in the condescension of a smile.

“Sure, sorr,” said she, in a most unexpected brogue.

“Well, I've got 'em all,” said Orde, as soon as the waitress had gone with the order. “But the best stroke of business you'd never guess. I roped in Heinzman.”

“Good!” approved Newmark briefly.

“It was really pretty decent of the little Dutchman. He agreed to let us put up our stock as security. Of course, that security is good only if we win out; and if we win out, why, then he'll get his logs, so he won't have any use for security. So it's just one way of beating the devil around the bush. He evidently wanted to give us the business, but he hated like the devil to pass up his rules--you know how those old shellbacks are.”

“H'm, yes,” said Newmark.

The waitress sailed in through a violently kicked swinging door, bearing aloft a tin tray heaped perilously. She slanted around a corner in graceful opposition to the centrifugal, brought the tray to port on a sort of landing stage by a pillar, and began energetically to distribute small “iron-ware” dishes, each containing a dab of something. When the clash of arrival had died, Orde went on:

“I got into your department a little, too.”

“How's that?” asked Newmark, spearing a baked potato. “Heinzman said he'd buy some of our stock. He seems to think we have a pretty good show.”