There could be no doubt that the fellow would do as he said. He hadn’t the faintest idea in his system of what a “bluff” was. And the fear of losing this rare chance for ingenious chicanery drove Pentecost into the execution of what is popularly referred to as a “climb down.” Although able to camouflage this performance so that it did not appear in that unpleasant light, he had, before leaving the old Cripps mansion that evening, virtually guaranteed that his firm would take over the entire exploiting rights in the Haworth mechanism, and had agreed to pay for the same in cash, upon the signing of the contract, an amount which should be “satisfactory” to the young inventor. As to this payment he asked for a delay of fourteen days so that he could sound the market, the idea of the thing being so utterly unique that it was impossible at this time to estimate the exact figure they could pay. And as he needed every moment of the fourteen days option—as you might call it, and this being Sunday and so late anyway that nothing could be accomplished, he asked that the time allowed begin on the following day—Monday—at noon, bringing its expiration on Monday the 30th of August at the same hour. With talk like this—which, as you see, bound him to nothing—in combination with the young man’s earnest desire that he should be the one to undertake the exploitation, Haworth was persuaded into this fourteen days delay, being made confident of receiving a large amount of money at the end of that time. Pentecost said he would bring Harker there to draw up the contract, on his return from Pittsburgh, and then this promoter of hazardous and extraordinary villainies rose to take his leave, slipping a bunch of bills on the table as he did so, with the explanation that what he’d got—though not in legal form—was really a fourteen-day option, and as option money he was leaving a couple of hundred. There was nothing of kindliness or rescue work involved in this; Pentecost had sized up Haworth well enough to know that acceptance of money would make him feel in honor bound to wait the fourteen days—bound firmer, indeed, than if he’d signed documents. A wary move, certain to prevent the young fellow, in a possible fit of desperation, from taking his astonishing idea to a motion picture concern.