Well, the funniest conversation you, I, or anybody else ever heard begins right then and there. Jared starts off kinda weak and tremblin' and I felt sorry for him, because from his answers it looked like a cinch that he was fired. Pretty soon he gets a little stronger, and in a few minutes he was talkin' like the boss was workin' for _him_! The only way I can figure it is that Alex had hopped him up so much that he got to where he believed himself that he was the only man on earth that could land this contract. When Jared says if he don't get this chance he's gonna quit his job right then and there and the boss can look elsewhere for the estimate figures, I almost fell off the couch, and Alex does a war dance. Bang! Jared slams down the receiver and swings around on Alex. "Well," he snaps out, "you've done it! I am to be at the Hotel Dubois at eleven to-morrow to meet the representatives of one of the biggest steel concerns in the country. I'm to take from them a contract running into millions. If I don't get it, I'm fired. If I do get it--well, there's no use talking about that part of it, because I won't!" With that he sinks into a chair and buries his head in his hands. Alex keeps right on top of him. "Fine!" he says, rubbin' his hands together. "Now call up Miss Evans and ask her to marry you!" "What?" shrieks Jared, bouncin' up from his chair. "What is this? A nightmare? You've already probably cost me my job, and now you want to wreck my happiness! I was a fool to listen to you. I--" "Sure!" says Alex. "Let's get her on the phone right away." Jared looks wildly around the room and grabs for his hat. Alex pushes him back in a chair. "Now, you listen to me!" he snarls, all the grin gone from him. "You are at this minute facin' the biggest thing that's ever come into your thirty-five-dollar-a-week life. You got a chance now to rise above the mob. You also got a chance to marry what is the greatest girl in the world, accordin' to your own admission. If you ask her to marry you _before_ you go after this contract and she accepts you, think of the confidence you'll have! Why, boy, if this girl says she'll marry you, they ain't nothin' in New York can stop you from goin' over the top! Go on! You're all worked up now--go to it before you get cold!" Jared grabs up the phone receiver, pale as a ghost. "By heavens!" he says. "I--you--if--Gimme Morningside 77,638, quick!" Alex closes the door and pulls me into the other room. "That there's gonna be private," he says. "Where did you meet this Miss Evans?" I says. "H'mph!" grunts Alex. "I never seen the girl in my life! Jared simply told me about her, that's all!" "Well," I says, "you certainly have balled things up. They ain't a doubt in my mind but that you've made that poor boy lose his job; and as far as I can see you're gonna make him lose his girl, too! I'd hate to be you when he staggers away from that phone!"