i 51ddca29df3edad1 by Unknown Read Free Book Online

days. His body was big, thick and hard. He had been an athlete in his time and the effect was still with him in spite of his sly drinking, although that was showing now in a thickening above his belt.
    He had never liked his father-in-law, perhaps because he knew that everything Dave Rippon did for him was really for his daughter. He was where he was, he knew, because he had married Esther. This knowledge hadn't irked him during the first years of marriage, but latterly it had got under his skin, more so as he took his father-in-law's real measure. He knew for instance that his father-in-law couldn't make a straight deal if his life depended on it. Even about the car he had to be crooked. He wouldn't get fourteen hundred for it; it had only cost him eighteen hundred in the first place not two thousand. If he got twelve hundred he'd-be lucky, and that's what he wanted him to pay.
    Moreover the car wasn't two years old; by his reckoning it was three, nearer four.
    "I'm a fool for letting it go in any case." Harry blinked as his father-in-law leaned across the desk towards him.
    "I'm just going to get the same type, same colour in fact I think, but you know after a couple of years things start going.
    "Oh'--he leaned back again and napped his hand towards Harry--'that's bad business, isn't it? I'll have to look out, I'm slipping. Well, you know how she's been taken care of, there's nothing wrong with her really."
    Harry just stopped himself from saying, "No, you've only beaten the guts out of her."
    Dave Rippon waited for Harry to make some comment, and when none was forthcoming he blew his nose on a silk handkerchief before adopting his business attitude and saying, "Well,
    f it wasn't about the car, what brought you up on this the slack est morning of the year, for I don't expect there'll be two penn' orth of work done in the whole building today? "
    Harry swallowed, wetted his lips, then said, "I've come up about the Halliday estimates."
    There was a long pause before Dave Rippon spoke, and then he said one word, "Yes?"
    "Whelan got the estimate out."
    "I'm aware of that."
    "It was for six thousand, five hundred."
    There was another pause before Dave Rippon said, "I'm aware of that also, so what?"
    He held his father-in-law's eye as he said, "The estimate was sent out to them for seven thousand, two hundred and fifty."
    There was no reply from Dave Rippon now and Harry, wetting his lips again, said, "And there was another estimate sent to Halliday, apparently from Lovell's for eight thousand."
    "Now look here, Harry." Dave Rippon was sitting very straight in his chair, his two hands flat on the desk.
    "This is not in your department and I'll thank you ..."
    "But I think it is, Dave. You see, the letter came to me from Halliday; I got Whelan to make the estimate and that came to me too."
    "And then it came into this office. Prom then on it isn't your business."
    Harry took a deep breath and dared to say, "I don't like it. To me it's bad business."
    If he had thrust out his arm and punched his father-in-law right in the middle of his face Dave Rippon couldn't have been more taken aback, so much so that he could only stare at his daughter's husband and think, once again, she let herself in for something there. But his agile mind told him at this moment that he would -have to tread carefully with his son-in-law, because it would never do for this to get around, at least off this floor. He made himself lean back, take a deep, deep breath, and smile; then his voice calm-sounding, he said, "You know. Harry, right from the first I knew you weren't cut out for business, you're not ruthless enough. Now this is just a simple business deal; you've been long enough with the firm surely to realise " You sent an estimate supposedly from Lovell's for eight thousand for the same job. "
    Dave Rippon took a folded handkerchief now from his breast pocket and wiped something from the corner of his eye, stretching his mouth wide the while; then he