"Right you are," said Rawn, dropping a clenched fist on the table top. "_Inventors_ don't! But men of that same class--men of grip and grasp--_they_ do get off where the money is! I'll show you. They won't rob John Rawn!" VII "Did they take it easy?" queried Halsey finally. "Threatened to kill me, that was all! As I said, they locked the door. It was the traffic manager, Ackerman, who took it roughest. We both looked along his pistol barrel. 'All right,' I said. 'Shoot. Kill me, and what is there left? You _can't_ take me in with you--it's only a question whether I'll take _you_ in with _me_! "'Now, you listen,' I said to Standley and Ackerman--and I wasn't afraid of them--'I'll show you how to make something that everybody has to have. I'll put speed into the work of every laboring man--I'll double his efficiency, double his hours and halve his pay, and I'll cut off his ability to help himself. I'll make labor unions impossible. I'll gear up, pace up, stiffen up the whole theory of life and work, I tell you, gentlemen,' said I, 'so that one hour will count for two, one man will count for two, one wage will count for two! Do you get me, gentlemen?' I asked of them--just those two were in the office then, and the door was locked behind me. 'You're big men,' said I, 'but you're not as big as I am. It's a cheap bluff about that gun,' I said to Ackerman. 'Put it up. You wouldn't dare kill me, or dare do anything I didn't want you to. I came to you because it was easier to walk down this hall than it was to walk across the street. Do you want me to walk across the street?'" Rawn chuckled gently; and now indeed he did present the very image of self-confidence. "Well, then, they saw it," said he finally. "They didn't want me to walk across the street! Standley laughed at Ackerman. 'No use to kill him yet,' says he. I laughed then, we all laughed. 'No, it wouldn't be any use,' said I to them. 'The question is, how much I ought to give you.' "Ackerman took it hard. He's a bulldog sort of man. 'You're damned impudent!' said he. 'I'll have you fired.' "'I'm fired now!' says I to them. 'You think I'm only a common clerk. Didn't both of you come up from clerking? Can't I take you higher yet than where you are now?' The Old Man, Standley, nodded then; and pretty soon he reached out and took my hand. 'Come in, son,' says he. 'You're on.' "Well, that's nearly all there was about it, Charley. I say to you, too, 'Come in, son--you're on.' VIII