Carmichael took me into Strauss's office and introduced me to one of the men, a shrewd little fellow, who managed some of the old man's deals for him. After a little while, the man, Gooch, began to talk of my sausage business, praised the idea, and hinted that his boss might consider buying me out "for a proper figure." So we began to deal, and pretty soon Gooch named a figure, twenty-five thousand dollars or something of the sort, expecting me to bite. I laughed, and Carmichael, who was sitting by enjoying the fun, said: "He's no kid, Gooch, though he looks it. Better go your whole figure straight off." Gooch then said thirty-five thousand dollars--that was the limit. I began to talk about the kosher meat business the Schunemann brothers were handling for me, and I could see Gooch's eyes open. He got up and went back into an inner office, and when he returned he made the figure fifty thousand dollars. Carmichael expected me to take his offer, and if I had been asked that morning I should have said it was a big price. But suddenly it came into my mind that in that inner office was the great Strauss himself. He thought I was too small fry to deal with: he left me to his lieutenant. And I had a good mind to bring him out to buy my plant of me. So I talked on, and Gooch asked me to name my figure. "Seventy thousand," I answered pretty quick. Gooch turned to his desk, as if to tell me to go home, and Carmichael grunted, thinking how he would laugh at me about my cheek. I began to think I had gone too far, when the door of that inner office was pulled back and Strauss himself walked into the room. He nodded to Carmichael and gave me a look from head to foot, but said nothing. Gooch waited for the great man to speak. "We'll take your figure, Mr. Harrington," Strauss said, after he had looked me up and down, and walked out again. It took my breath away: the next moment I was sorry I hadn't said a hundred, it seemed so easy. But Strauss was back in his office and the door was pulled to. The next I knew I was on the street, and big John was laughing so that men turned to look at him. "Pretty good for a kid," he kept saying between his bursts of laughter. "You had the old fox on the run. He wanted your cat's-meat place bad, though." [Illustration: _The door of the inner office was pulled back and Strauss himself walked into the room._] We went into a saloon, and I set up a bottle of champagne. "You're all right," Carmichael said to me when we had drunk to my good luck. "You couldn't have run that place much longer. The big ones would have eaten you up, hide and all." "I knew that!" I said calmly. Carmichael looked at me with considerable respect, and that was one of the pleasantest moments of my life. CHAPTER X LOVE