"Exactly!" Mr. Fogg's eyes did not blink.
"You will be prepared to testify to that effect in case the need ever
arises."
"Exactly!"
Mr. Fogg delivered that word like a countersign. Into it, in his
interviews with Julius Marston, he put understanding, humility, promise.
"May we expect quick action?" asked the financier. "The thing mustn't
hang fire. We have a lot of our nimble money tied up as it is."
"Exactly!" returned Mr. Fogg, on his way to the door. "Quick action it
is!"
"This is probably the craziest idea that ever popped into a man's head
when that man was sitting in Julius Marston's office," reflected Mr.
Fogg, marching through the anteroom of this temple of finance. "There's
one thing about it that's comforting--it's so wild-eyed it will never
be blamed on to Julius Marston as any of his getting up. And that's his
principal lookout when a deal is on. It seems to be up to me to deliver
the goods."
He sat down on a bench in the waiting-room and rubbed his knuckles over
his forehead.
"Just let me get this thing right end to," he told himself. "How did
the idea happen to hit me, anyway? Oh, yes! Old Vose bragging to me that
every stockholder in the Vose line was behind him, and that the annual
meeting was about to come off, and then I would see what a condemned
poor show I stood to get even the toe of my boot into the crack of the
company door. He's a Maine corporation. I've known of cases where that
fact helped a lot. There are plenty of ifs and buts in this thing, but
here goes!"
He applied himself to one of the office telephones, asked for several
numbers, one after the other, and put questions with eagerness and
rapidity.
The information he received seemed to disturb him considerably. He came
out of the booth and scrubbed his cheeks with his purple handkerchief.
"Their annual meeting at ten o'clock to-morrow morning, four hundred
miles from here! Well, I suppose I ought to be thankful that it's not
being held right now," Mr. Fogg informed himself, determined to fan that
one flicker of hope with both wings of his optimism. "But I've got to
admit that twenty-four hours is almighty scant time for a job of this
sort, even when the operator is the little Fogg boy himself. Damme, I
haven't come to a full, realizing sense yet of all I've got to do and
how I'm going to do it."