The Driver by Garet Garrett

Author:Garet Garrett
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: E. P. Dutton and Company

iv

Late the next afternoon he appeared at my desk, sat down, fixed me with a stare and began to whistle Yankee Doodle out of tune.

“Did they take your plan?” I asked him.

He went on whistling. I couldn’t guess what had happened. His expression was unreadable.

“Did they?” I asked again.

He stopped for breath.

“Spit on your hands, Coxey,” he said, as if I were at a distance and needed some encouragement. “We’ve got her by the tail,—by the tail, tail! tail! We’ll tie a knot in the end of it and then we’re off.”

He never told me how he did it. He had no vanity of reminiscence. Long afterward I got it from a junior partner of the firm of Mordecai & Co.

They hardly knew him by sight. He appeared in their office on that hot Summer morning and said simply that he wished to talk Great Midwestern. He would see nobody but Mordecai himself. At mid-day they were still talking, and lunch was brought to Mordecai’s room. One by one the junior members were called in until they were all present.

Galt amazed them with his knowledge of the property, its situation and possibilities; even more with his acute understanding of its finances. He gave them information on matters they had never heard of. He gave them original ideas with such frankness and unreserve that at one point Mordecai interrupted.

“Ve cannod vorged vad you zay, Mr. Gald. Id iss zo impordand ve mighd use id. Zare iss no bargain yed. Ve are nod here angels.”

“I can’t help that,” said Galt. ‘To sell a tune you have to play it.” And he went on.

When Mordecai spoke again the case was lost.

“Vor uss id iss nod,” he said. “Vor uss id iss nod. Ve are bankers. To zese heights ov imagination ve cannod vollow, Mr. Gald. Id iss beautiful. Ve are zorry.”

In the doorway Galt turned and faced them. No one else had moved.

“I’m tired,” he said. “I need some sleep. I’ll come tomorrow.”

The scene was repeated the next day,—Galt talking, the bankers listening, Mordecai lying back in his chair, gazing at the ceiling, tapping the ends of his fingers together, blowing his breath through his short gray beard.

“Vad iss id vor yourself you vand, Mr. Gald?” he asked without moving.

It was Galt’s way when he was winning to press his luck. He wanted a place on the board of directors. But he demanded more.

“I want to be chairman of the board,” he said.

“Id vould be strange,” said Mordecai, pensively. “Nobody vould understand id. Ooo iss zat Mr. Gald? Vy iss he made chairman? Zo ze people vould talk. Ov ze old directors ooo vould fode vor zat Mr. Gald?”

“Gates and Valentine will vote for me,” said Galt.

“You haf asked zem?”

“I have asked Gates,” said Galt “I am sure of Valentine.”

Another way of Galt’s was to stop at the peak of his argument, and wait. When the other man in his mind is coming over to your side a word too much will often stop him.

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