" McCarthy barked out
a short laugh, and reached for the cigar box, which he held out to Darrow.
Percy shook his head. "What's the occasion?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know. Just bughouse, I guess."
"So he wants you to go to Europe?"
"Wants me? Orders me! Says I got to." McCarthy laughed. "Lovely thought!"
He puffed out a cloud of smoke.
"Says if I don't obey orders he'll send me a 'sign' to convince me!" went
on the boss. "He's got a mean voice. He ought to have a tag hung on him
and get carried to the morgue. He give me the shivers, like a dead man. I
never hear such a unholy thing outside a graveyard at midnight!"
Percy Darrow was surveying him with leisurely amusement, a slight smile
playing over his narrow dark face.
"Talking to get back your nerve," he surmised cheerfully to the usually
taciturn boss. "I'd like to know what it was got you going so; it isn't
much your style."
"Well, you got yours with you," growled McCarthy, shifting for the first
time from his solid attitude of the bulldog at bay.
"His 'sign' he promised is apt to be a bomb," observed Darrow.
"He's nutty, all right," McCarthy agreed, "but when he said that, he was
doing the tall religious. He's got a bug that way."
"Your affair," said Darrow. "Just the same, I'd have an outer office."
"Outer office--rot!" said the boss. "An outer office just gets cluttered
up with people waiting. Here they've got to say it right out in
meeting--if I want 'em to.
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