"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.
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