I could take Eldon's place for six
months with the right to purchase for two thousand dollars paid
down; and I could manage the servants and the living expenses for
another four thousand. I fear I should not be able to get on
with a less sum than six thousand dollars.'
"Then he added - he was a child to the last - 'perhaps Mr.
Hardman will now be able to advance it; he promised me "a further
per cent" those were his words, when the matter was finally
concluded.'
"Then ten thousand would do?"
"My word,' he said, `I should go it like a lord on ten thousand.
Do you think Mr. Hardman would consider that sum?'
"`I'm going to try him,' I said, `I've got some influence in a
quarter that he depends on.'
"And I went out. I went down to my bank and got twenty U. S.
bonds of a thousand each. At five o'clock, the professor had his
dope ready - the text and the chart, neatly folded in a big
manilla envelope with a rubber band around it. And that evening
I went up to see old Nute."
Barclay got another cigarette. There was a queer cynicism in his
big pitted face.
"The church bunch," he said, "have got a strange conception of
the devil; they think he's always ready to lie down on his
friends.
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