EATED at the window of their new office on Fifth Avenue, both officers of the Cambridge Company were so deeply absorbed in contemplation of the traffic that at first they paid no attention to the stenographer, who was trying to announce a client.
"Fives full of fours!" said Dillingham, noting the license number of an expensive automobile. "That's another for me!"
"You wait a while. The bus is mine. Four sevens! It's 71777!"
"Only limousines count, Pepper," his partner reminded him. "A bus isn't a limousine!"
"Why isn't it? Don't you call it a closed car?"
"But look here! Suppose a truck came along with the sides boarded up. Would that be a limousine?"
"Sure it would. I guess you saw it coming, didn't you?"
They peered eagerly for the number of the approaching truck.
"Well, I don't think I'd call it one," said Dillingham. The number was 1605.
"Decision stands—you've got six high. Mine—mine's 98576—a straight! That's four dollars and a half you owe me.
"Mr. Westervelt to see you," repeated the stenographer for the third time. The partners turned simultaneously and made for their desks.
"Send him in!" commanded McHenry, grabbing a fountain pen and setting himself to write furiously on a memorandum pad. Dillingham, less energetic, contented himself with opening half a dozen volumes of the business library, and spreading them out on his blotter. Mr. Westervelt, entering briskly from the tiny reception room, naturally gathered the impression that they were busy young men with not much time to spare.
Mr. Westervelt sat down, carefully arranged his trousers to prevent bagging at the knees, crossed his neatly spatted ankles, threw open his coat to display an angora waistcoat of vigorous pattern, and introduced himself.
"I'm H. Payson Westervelt," he said. "You've probably seen me play."
"Oh, certainly," agreed McHenry hospitably. "Hundreds of times."
Dillingham scribbled hastily on a scrap of paper, and held up to the president's scrutiny the question:
"Baseball, piano, or movies?" but Pepper heeded him not.
"Well," continued the-client, "somebody told me you're looking for investments, so I thought I'd come in and hand you a tip. First off, am I right? Are you in the market?"
"That's our business—what's the idea?"
"The idea is this." He hitched his chair nearer McHenry, and began to tap him affectionately on the arm. "I've got an option on the theater in Middleburgh, Connecticut, for ten weeks, beginning February. Stock, you know. Now stock's always been a flivver in Middleburgh, because they tried to play twenty weeks. The people got tired of it. Ten weeks is just about right. I can pick my company in half an hour after I get the backing, and I've got a schedule of expenses right here." He laid it on the desk, bowed to it, and to McHenry. "Rent five thousand, company a thousand a week, royalties and scenery fifteen hundred, advertising a thousand, incidentals one thousand. Eighteen five total—call it twenty. That's twenty thousand dollars for a ten weeks' season, or two thousand a week. The house seats about fifteen hundred, and is worth about eight hundred dollars, at regular prices.
"That's eight hundred, if we play to capacity in the evening, and half price for matinee every day makes twelve hundred a day, or seventy-two hundred a week. Which is to say, that we make money if only one seat out of three is taken! What do you think of it?"
"If it didn't cost anything, it would be a wonder," said McHenry. "But what's the rest of the narrative?"
H. Payson Westervelt hitched still nearer, and tapped McHenry over the lungs.
"You put up five thousand in cash," he said, "and we'll split! Five thousand would carry us nearly three weeks if we didn't take in a cent. If we play to a third of the house, we'll make four hundred a week, two hundred apiece, and that would give you forty per cent for a ten weeks' investment, which is at the rate of two hundred per cent a year. But we'll do better than that. We ought to clear nine or ten thousand apiece, easy! Why, think what other producers have done! Look at the money there is in it! If you get the crowd coming—why, it's a cinch!"
"The scheme is for us to put up five thousand? What do you put up?"
"Character," said Mr. Westervelt, tapping his own chest as a diversion. "Individuality; prestige; experience; acquaintance. I manage, and play heavy parts. I draw only a nominal salary. I'll gamble with you. Do you think I'd stake my professional reputation in stock if I wasn't sure of it?"
"It's rather out of our line," observed Pepper thoughtfully. "To tell the truth—well, what do you think of it, Pierce?"