“I am.”

Marrineal stared.  “Both?  At the same time?”

“Yes.”

“No living man could do it.”

“I can do it.  I’ve proved it to myself.”

“How and where?”

“Since I last saw you.  Now that I’ve got the hang of it, I can do an editorial in the morning, another in the afternoon, a third in the evening.  Two and a half days a week will turn the trick.  That leaves the rest of the time for the other special jobs.”

“You won’t live out the six months.”

“Insure my life if you like,” laughed Banneker.  “Work will never kill me.”

Marrineal, sitting with inscrutable face turned half away from his visitor, was beginning, “If I meet you on the salary,” when Banneker broke in: 

“Wait until you hear the rest.  I’m asking that for six months only.  Thereafter I propose to drop the non-editorial work and with it the salary.”

“With what substitute?”

“A salary based upon one cent a week for every unit of circulation put on from the time the editorials begin publication.”

“It sounds innocent,” remarked Marrineal.  “It isn’t as innocent as it sounds,” he added after a penciled reckoning on the back of an envelope.  “In case we increase fifty thousand, you will be drawing twenty-five thousand a year.”

“Well?  Won’t it be worth the money?”

“I suppose it would,” admitted Marrineal dubiously.  “Of course fifty thousand in six months is an extreme assumption.  Suppose the circulation stands still?”

“Then I starve.  It’s a gamble.  But it strikes me that I’m giving the odds.”

“Can you amuse yourself for an hour?” asked Marrineal abruptly.

“Why, yes,” answered Banneker hesitantly.  “Perhaps you’d turn me loose in your library.  I’d find something to put in the time on there.”

“Not very much, I’m afraid,” replied his host apologetically.  “I’m of the low-brow species in my reading tastes, or else rather severely practical.  You’ll find some advertising data that may interest you, however.”

From the hour—­which grew to an hour and a half—­spent in the library, Banneker sought to improve his uncertain conception of his prospective employer’s habit and trend of mind.  The hope of revelation was not borne out by the reading matter at hand.  Most of it proved to be technical.

When he returned to Marrineal’s den, he found Russell Edmonds with the host.

“Well, son, you’ve turned the trick,” was the veteran’s greeting.

“You’ve read ’em?” asked Banneker, and Marrineal was shrewd enough to note the instinctive shading of manner when expert spoke to expert.  He was an outsider, being merely the owner.  It amused him.

“Yes.  They’re dam’ good.”

“Aren’t they dam’ good?” returned Banneker eagerly.

“They’ll save the day if anything can.”

“Precisely my own humble opinion if a layman may speak,” put in Marrineal.  “Mr. Banneker, shall I have the contract drawn up?”