ood."

Martin studied Jim's face with a look of warm approbation, but Jimmy,
entirely unaware of the scrutiny, stared into the fireplace with eyes
that seemed glowing with big dreams.

"If I thought Mr. Sayers wouldn't think me a fool," he said, almost as
if to himself, "I'd like to have him give me a chance with these schemes
of mine on this basis: That I'd go to work for him for my bare living
expenses--I'd work for just half the salary I got from the Columbus
people--and that he would give me a percentage and all the increase of
sales. And--I'd like to take that payment in stock in the business, so
that if I did make a big success of it, I'd feel thereafter, year by
year, that I was hustling for myself as well as the Sayers Company."

"You know that it's not an ordinary corporation, don't you?" Martin
asked. "No? Well it's the closest corporation I know. Sayers owns
seventy-five per cent of it. His daughter is the next largest
stockholder, and his superintendent has practically all the remainder
which, by the way, was given him as a bonus for efficient work."

"Phew!" exclaimed Jimmy. "I didn't know Mr. Holmes was a stockholder, or
I'd have been more circumspect. Good Lord! I criticised the selling
organization and roasted it from top to bottom, and even told him one or
two things I thought might improve his plant. Just my luck! I'll never
get sense enough to keep my mouth shut about things over which I
enthuse."

"There's where you are wrong. The superintendent has given you the
biggest boost I ever knew one man to give another. He says you are the
livest wire he ever met and that the plant must have you at any price;
says that he never met a man in his life whose head was so filled with
new and original ideas and that half the time you had him dazed with
trying to keep up with you. So, you see, it paid you to be frank and
outspoken with him at least, and--Sayers thinks a lot of what that
superintendent says! I can tell you that."

He stopped, relighted his half-burned cigar, appeared to consider for a
time while Jimmy, waiting his friendly advice, watched him eagerly, and
then said, "Well, Gollop, I'll tell you something more. I've been
authorized to go fully into this thing with you, and to decide it. The
job is yours, on the terms you propose, save for this. You shall draw
exactly the same salary that the Columbus Company paid you. You shall
have a full year in which to prove that your management of your
d