I had no illusions, Hughie, that you’d stand for any cash advance to carry me over to Honolulu—just in order that I might, by sheer luck, catch a mere 10 to 30 minutes with Lumsden. But I didn’t see where you could stop me from taking a gamble with my own coin. A good gamble, too, Hughie. A sale—to all Australia! And that sales managership if I made it. And a buyer so damned water-tired, that he’d at least be in a frame of mind where he’d be willing to look at some good old dry-goods!
And besides which, Hughie, the more I looked at my phiz in the glass, damn it, with that mustache and Vandyke beard you fellows were razzing me about—and the pair of tortoise-shell glasses on my face—the more it seemed to me I had a magic “in” with Lumsden—considering his known leaning tendencies toward sal
