waited until he had finished breakfast and the waiter withdrew.
"As I told you over the telephone," Chartres said cheerfully, "your mission is quite hopeless. However—"
"If you will permit me to present a few figures, as you requested at our first interview," offered Dudley and he took his two months' work from his briefcase, all neatly typed in easily grasped form.
Chartres accepted the sheets of paper with little interest. As he read his small eyes brightened a little. It took him twenty minutes to digest what was before him. Then he consumed another twenty minutes in going over them thoroughly again, while Dudley sat in extreme discomfort, for in addition to the momentous business at hand the room was very stuffy and hot, a condition which the Frenchman did not seem to mind in the slightest.
Having finished his reading, Chartres asked a few sharp questions for five minutes. Then he said, "Did you bring a contract for me to sign, Mr. Drake?"
Dudley, who could have been knocked over with a feather at that moment, produced the contract. This is a preliminary agreement," he managed to say. "If you will come down to the office, we will have the other papers drawn and ready for you."
