Horace tried to smile. “Upon my word, you are frank,” he said. “There’s no time to be anything else,” replied the Judge. “And why shouldn’t we be? We simply state facts to you. A great commercial transaction, involving profits to everybody, is outlined before you. It happens that by my recommendation you are in a place where you can embarrass its success, for a minute or two, if you have a mind to. But why in God’s name you should have a mind to, or why you take up time by pretending to be offish about it, is more than I can make out. Damn it, sir, you’re not a woman, who wants to be asked a dozen times! You’re a man, lucky enough to be associated with other men who have their heads screwed on the right way, and so don’t waste any more time.” “Oh, that reminds me,” said Horace, “I haven’t thanked you for recommending me.” “You needn’t,” replied the Judge, bluntly. “It was Tenney’s doing. I didn’t know you from a side of sole-leather. But _he_ thought you were the right man for the place.” “I hope you are not disappointed,” Horace remarked, with a questioning smile. “A minute will tell me whether I am or not,” the New York man exclaimed, letting his fat hand fall upon the table. “Come, what is your answer? Are you with us, or against us?” “At all events not against you, I should hope.” “Damn the man! Hasn’t he got a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in him?--Tenney, you’re to blame for this,” snapped Wendover, pulling his watch from the fob in his tightened waistband, and scowling at the dial. “I’ll have to run, as it is.” He rose again from his chair, and bent a sharp gaze upon Horace’s face. “Well, young man,” he demanded, “what is your answer?” “I think I can see my way to obliging you,” said Horace, hesitatingly. “But, of course, I want to know just how I am to stand in the--” “That Tenney will see to,” said the Judge, swiftly. He gathered up the papers on the table, thrust them into a portfolio with a lock on it, which he gave to Tenney, snatched his hat, and was gone, without a word of adieu to anybody. “Great man of business, that!” remarked the hardware merchant, after a moment of silence. Horace nodded assent, but his mind had not followed the waddling figure of the financier. It was dwelling perplexedly upon the outcome of this adventure upon which he seemed to be fully embarked, and trying to establish a conviction that it would be easy to withdraw from it at will, later on. “He can make millions where other men only see thousands, and they beyond their reach,” pursued Tenney, in an abstracted voice. “When he’s your friend, there isn’t anything you can’t do; and he’s as straight as a string, too, so long as he likes a man. But he’s a terror to have ag’in you.”