thousand extra dollars � the reward paid by the community to mr for the virtue of a who had vision and who understood talking points key situations and the of came to the conference he was fond of this morning and called him old the a long man and solemn seemed to care less for and for vision but met bim at the street door of the office and guided him toward the private room with little cries of this way brother he took from the correspondence file the entire box of cigars and forced them on his guests he pushed chairs two inches forward and three inches hack which gave an ho note then leaned back in his desk chair and looked plump and jolly but he spoke to the with firmness well we been having some pretty tempting offers from and a of other folks for that lot next to your store but i persuaded that we ought to give you a shot at the property first i said to it d be a rotten shame i said if somebody went and opened a combination and meat market right next and ruined s nice little business especially � leaned forward and his voice was harsh � it would be bard luck if one of these cash and carry chain stores got in there and started cutting prices below cost til they got rid of competition and forced you to the wall i snatched his thin hands from his pockets pulled up his trousers thrust his hands back into his pockets in the heavy oak chair and tried to look amused as he struggled yes they re bad competition but i guess you don t realize the pulling power that personality has in a neighborhood business the great smiled that s so just as you feel old man we thought we d give you first chance all right now look here i know f r a fact that a piece of property bout same size right near sold for less n eighty five hundred n t two years ago and here you fellows are asking me twenty thousand dollars why i d have to � i wouldn t mind so much paying twelve thousand but � why good god mr you re asking mat a twice its and to ruin me if i don t take i don t like your way of don t like it one bit i supposing and i were enough to want to ruin my human don t you suppose we know it s to our own selfish interest to have everybody in pro but all this is beside the point tell you what well do we ll come down to twenty three thousand � five thousand down and the rest on � and if you want to wreck the old and i guess i can get here to up for a building on good liberal terms heavens man we d be ad to oblige you we don t like these foreign any better n you do but it isn t reasonable to expect us to sacrifice eleven thousand or more just for � it how about it you to come down by warmly taking s part persuaded the benevolent mr to reduce his price to twenty one thousand dollars at the right moment snatched from a drawer the agreement he had had miss type out a ago and thrust it into s bands he shook his fountain pen to make certain that it was flowing handed it to and watched him sign the work of the world was being done had made something over nine thousand dollars had made a and fifty dollar commission had by the sensitive of n been provided with a business building and soon the happy inhabitants of would have meat upon them at prices only a little higher than those down town it had been a manly battle but after it drooped this was the only really amusing contest he had been planning there was nothing ahead save details of he muttered makes me sick to think of carrying oft most of the profit en i did all the the old and � what else have i got to do to day � like to take a good long trip he rang iq by the thought of with paul � i� s preparations for leaving the office to its feeble self during the hour and a half of his were some ess elaborate than the plans for a general european war he fretted to miss what time you going to well make sure miss is in then explain to her that if calls up she s to tell him i m already having the title traced and oh b the way remind me to morrow to have trace it now if anybody comes in looking for a cheap house remember we got to that road place ofi somebody if you need me ni be at the club i ll be back by two he the cigar ashes off his he placed a difficult letter on the pile of unfinished work that he might not fail to attend to it that afternoon for three now he had placed the same letter on the unfinished pile he on a sheet of yellow paper the see apt h which gave him an agreeable feeling of having already seen about the apartment house doors he discovered that he was smoking another cigar he threw it away protesting dam it i thought you d quit this he the cigar box to the correspondence file locked it up hid the key in a more difficult place and raged ought to take care of f and need more exercise � walk to the every single noon � just what do � every noon � cut out this all the time the resolution made him feel immediately after it he decided that this noon it was 