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Updated: June 11, 2025
No one spoke a good word for him and yet Fred had to admit that the revilings were flavored with a certain grudging respect. He was an open and consistent tyrant, at any rate. An option on Hilmer! What a trick Storch had for illuminating phrases! ... And his divinations were uncanny. Why should he assume that Hilmer was in any way bound up in Fred Starratt's life?
"I've a note from her here," he said, handing Starratt a square envelope. Fred broke the seal and unfolded the contents deliberately. He read very slowly... When he had finished he read it through again. He sat for some moments on the edge of the bed, tapping his lips with a tentative finger. Finally he rose. "Well, Mr. Watson," he said, bitterly, "I said I'd stand by Mrs. Starratt's decision.
The questions he had asked Fred Starratt on that first night had been insignificant in themselves. Why was it ridiculous for a butcher to want an eight-hour day? Why should one have the firm's interest at heart? And yet the sparks from such verbal flint stones had kindled a revolt that had wrecked Fred Starratt's complacence.
Hilmer did not betray the slightest surprise at Starratt's reply. Evidently he had heard something of the same argument before. "Everybody does it," was his calmly brief rejoinder. "You mean Kendrick, to be exact... I'm sorry, but I don't see it that way." "Do you mean that you would rather pass up a half-million-dollar line than share the spoils?" "It isn't a question of choice, Hilmer.
He felt a clammy hand pressing the bill against his palm. "Thanks, awfully," he murmured again. Brauer dropped his eyes with a suggestion of unpleasant humility. "I wish," flashed through Starratt's mind, "that I had asked for ten dollars."
Either she was unable or unwilling to fathom the fascination which a subtle game sometimes held for a man schooled only in elemental approaches toward his goal. Was he enthralled or confused or merely curious? And how long would he continue to give his sufferance scope? How long would he pretend to play the moth to Helen Starratt's fitful flamings? Mrs.
The next day Fred's friend said again: "Kendrick's doing some gum-shoe work, Starratt... You'd better go awful slow." With the coming of May other anxieties claimed Starratt's attention. Bills that he had forgotten or neglected began to pour in.
Over the edge of the newspaper Fred stole a furtive glance. The man was of slippery slenderness, with a rather round, expressionless face. His eyes were beady and shifting, and his lips thin and pale and cruel. The waitress came tripping back with Starratt's order. Fred fell to. Presently Fred finished. He rose deliberately, taking time to brush every crumb from his lap.
After the first two weeks Fred Starratt's business venture went forward amazingly. His application for membership in the Insurance Broker's Exchange was rushed through by influential friends and he became, through this action, a full-fledged fire insurance broker. He did not need this formality, however, to qualify him as a solicitor in other insurance lines.
"I think the answer is obvious, Starratt. Don't you? The hand that feeds a man is..." "Feeds? That may work both ways." "I don't quite understand." Starratt's glance traveled toward the golf sticks. "Well, it seems to me it's a case of one man cutting down on necessities to provide another with luxuries." He hated himself once he had said it. It outraged his own sense of breeding. Mr.
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