“Now, I’ve shown what I can do with those stories.  I’ve taken your bad bargain and put it into a money-making shape.  As to the break I made in getting those boys out here, you’ll have to show me—­that’s all.  They seem, to have made good all right, judging from the way that film took with the crowd.  And if you ask my opinion as a director, they beat any near-professional on the Acme pay roll.  My work, and their work, goes right along as it has started—­or it stops.  If you want those stories worked up in a lot of darned, sickly, slush melodrama, you can set some simp at it that don’t know any better.”  Luck stopped and shut his teeth together against some personal remarks that he would later feel ashamed of having uttered.  He turned to the door, swallowed hard, and forced himself to a dignified calm before he spoke again.

“You know my phone number, Mart.  By seven in the morning I’ll expect to hear from you.  You can tell me then whether I’m to go ahead with these stories the way I’ve started, or whether to pull out of the Company altogether.  One or the other.  I’ll want to know in the morning.”  Then he went out.

“Dammit, who’s running this company—­you or I?” Martinson called after him heatedly.  But Luck was already standing on the steps and hoisting his umbrella against the drizzle, and he did not give any sign that he heard.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“THERE’S GOT TO BE A LINE DRAWED SOMEWHERES”

By seven o’clock in the morning,—­since that was his ultimatum,—­Luck was standing in his bare feet and pajamas, acrimoniously arguing with Martinson over the telephone.  Usually he was up at six, but he was a stubborn young man, and the day promised much rainfall, anyway.  He would have preferred sunshine; the stand he meant to take would have had more weight in working weather.  But since he could not prevent the morning from being a rainy one, he permitted more determination to slip into his tones.

Martinson had spent an unpleasant evening with Bently Brown, or so he declared.  He had called up several stockholders of the Acme, and had talked the matter over with them, and—­

“Well, cut the preamble, Mart,” snapped Luck, trying to warm one foot by rubbing it with the other one.  “Do I go on with the work, or don’t I?”

“From the looks of the weather—­” Mart began to temporize.

“Weather cuts no figure with this matter.  You know what I mean.  What’s the decision?” Luck scowled at the pretty girl on his wall calendar, and began to rub his right foot with the left and to curse the janitor with that part of his brain not occupied with the conversation.

“Well, listen.  You come out to the office, after awhile, and we’ll go into this matter calmly,” begged Martinson.  “No use in letting that temper of yours run away with you, Luck.  You know we all—­”

“What did Bently Brown say?  Did you put the proposition up to him as I suggested?”