Heldar. In the absence of any specified agreement, the sketches are our
property, of course."
"Do you mean to say that you are going to keep them?"
"Yes; and we hope to have your help, on your own terms, Mr. Heldar, to assist
us in arranging a little exhibition, which, backed by our name and the
influence we naturally command among the press, should be of material service
to you. Sketches such as yours----"
"Belong to me. You engaged me by wire, you paid me the lowest rates you dared.
You can't mean to keep them! Good God alive, man, they're all I've got in the
world!"
Torpenhow watched Dick"s face and whistled.
Dick walked up and down, thinking. He saw the whole of his little stock in
trade, the first weapon of his equipment, annexed at the outset of his campaign
by an elderly gentleman whose name Dick had not caught aright, who said that he
represented a syndicate, which was a thing for which Dick had not the least
reverence. The injustice of the proceedings did not much move him; he had seen
the strong hand prevail too often in other places to be squeamish over the
moral aspects of right and wrong.
But he ardently desired the blood of the gentleman in the frockcoat, and when
he spoke again, it was with a strained sweetness that Torpenhow knew well for
the beginning of strife.
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