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Show r i teOQNcowff? IwfV I STRICTLY BUSINESS I j Xsk y- J By ROBERT C. BLACKMON place and the material? to do the job, and 1 was to be the judge ol whether the copies produced rere acceptable or not. If we had too much argument we could ich choose a friend and they would choose a third party to settle the argument. There wasn't anything left for me to do but go through with it. I was going to each Phil lip Crasor a lesson, anyway." My forgotten cigarette burned my fingers and I tossed it from the car. "I turned over a small cottage down on the lake to Phillip Crasor. stocked it with a Bible, paper, pens ink and blotter; and told him to g' to work. I left a man there to see that he didn't get outside help. I'. was strictly business with me. 1 had $50,000 at stake." "Phillip Crasor was going to produce 10 perfectly legible handwritten hand-written copies of the Bible, as tli contract provided, or he would lose the bet." "I didn't get back for a weel or two, and Phillip had spoiled a lc of paper but produced nothing ac ceptable. He wanted to fight, bu-I bu-I told him to read the contract an: THE finest sermon I ever heard ended and the benediction came s straight from the heart of the broad-shouldered figure in the pul- pit. The stirring voice of the big organ filled the church and the congregation con-gregation began to leave. Harry Thatcher and I were sur rounded by sober, thoughtful people as we went to the car. He drove t out toward the lake. 5i "Don," Thatcher said abruptly aft- i er he got a cigar started. We were entering the lake drive. "There are J -.three million, five hundred and ! sixty-thousand, four hundred and I eighty letters in the Bible." "I suppose so." I almost dropped tiMJd my cigarette. His talking about the ernor H Book took me b? surprise. His in- ical direi terest was financial news, exclusive- ernor's s ly. TTifrn nrfl Kpveii hundred and If a man can't look at it like that, he has no business betting." He tooled the big car around a curve. Sunlight was on the lake, a moving pattern of glinting water under .a cloud splashed sky. "The club was in an uproar, with men betting each other we'd both back out, or go on with it. I went over to the big bookcase at the other end of the room to think it out. "I saw the Bible in the bookcase book-case and remembered my mother telling me that the Book was good to read when you didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. "I took the Bible and saw in the back where it had so many letters and words and all that, and it gave me an idea. When I was in school I couldn't spell. "The teacher used to make me write missed words on the black- 1 M ft - IT Ah Ai TnnrTtlli ; ! l':-SJ P -fllli l ::l seventy-three thousand, seven n, V hundred and forty-six words in its thirty-one thousand, one hundred -vr1oi and seventy-three verses." J'4'- "Sure." I looked at him, wonder- A0T'ins ins' u , i j rlaime His gray eyes were hah" closed, Irchest his broad face grave. One could i,our i see why he was called "Bull-dog" ber of C Thatcher. He had a reputation of i 27, mu going alter business, wherever it rt fif. t. was, and getting it. n the bi , , , order th "Shortly after the war ended, a might be young man named Phillip Crasor the pu came into my club one evening." hony Oi Thatcher settled himself more com- through fortably in the broad front seat of 1 1 statu the car' one big hand on e wheel Jfl t0 ) rim. "He had been a pilot. I don't of the i know how many missions, but srt B. M enough. Star end at the university of Ut before that. All around athlete. He of Marc ha(j Deen mentioned as a possible Olympic chance. Folks had a lit- Khic Ue m0ney'" d i to ho The car roUed with almost no noise. I said nothing. This wasn't My man cabled me that Phillip Crasor had locked himself in the cottage and wouldn't let anyone in. it was time for him to put up or shut up. I thought he would burst. The club was betting he'd last aboul another week. I did not think he'd go that long." Thatcher looked out over the lake, then his eyes came back to the drive before us. "Business suddenly took me ta France and Italy and I stayed there for months." He coughed again, apologetically. "All wars are not won on the battlefield, and all soldiers sol-diers do not wear uniforms, yoa know. Anyway, I was gone over nine months. My man cabled ma that Phillip Crasor had locked himself him-self in the cottage and wouldn't let anyone in. The year was almost up when I got back home. It had about 20 days to run. I hurried down to the cottage." Thatcher flicked ashes from the cigar. "My man said Phillip Crasor had been gone for a week. The Id handwritten copies of the Bible were on a table- in the cottage, all perfectly per-fectly legible. On top of one pile was a letter to me from Phillip Crasor. I have that letter home now, in my Bible. He said he wouldn't take the $50,000 and the bet was off. I paid, though, to the church we attended this morning. When a man loses, he should pay. It's strictly business. If I'd won " "But what about Phillip Crasor?" I held another forgotten cigarette in my hand. "Oh. He preached that sermon you heard this morning." board a couple of hundred times. I, wrote about 20 words a minute, writing carefully. I figured I could write perhaps 30 words a minute, fast. That meant about 15,000 words in a full day of writing. At that rate, it would take 50 days to complete com-plete a handwritten copy of the Bible. Ten good, clear, handwritten handwrit-ten copies would therefore take about 500 days, and the bet was for a year." Thatcher laughed softly, remembering. remem-bering. "I realized that this was an ideal job for the purpose. It required no technical skill neither of us had, and there was a good chance that Phillip Crasor couldn't do it. I didn't want to lose $50,000 any more than he wanted to lose the five. Phillip hadn't stuck at anything since he came out of the army, and I figured he'd, drop out within a few weeks at the most. Then, I'd return his money and teach him a lesson he wouldn't forget about betting. And there was a very good chance that, after he learned what the job was to be, he'd drop the whole thing and agree to call the bet off. That would have been fine with me. I couldn't back down as long as Phillip Phil-lip wanted to go on, of course. The men at the club never would have forgotten it, and it would have hurt me in a business way. I went back to the others." He nursed his cigar for a few moments. "Phillip Crasor exploded when he learned what the job was to be. I didn't know it, but his handwriting was awful. He thought I was ribbing rib-bing him. The men in the club were having the time of their lives. A well-known lawyer drew up a contract and both of us signed it. Phillip Crasor wouldn't back down and I couldn't. I was to furnish the ins for tl the Harry Thatcher I'd known. I'd dy being dropped in on him last night since ler of coi I was in town for a few days, and , outside he'd insisted .upon my going to us way I cnurch with him this morning, "ah'resid Thatcher was not a church man, so "end th" i 'ar as knew. I waited. "Phillip had got some cockeyed ler new ideas in the army," Thatcher went rrangemi! on. "Some radical talk. He started )f Utah ij griping about youngsters in the army WI v.0'?' getting killed while the big-income J foro businessmen stayed home safe. My stne the income runs up a little." He couldn't Maurice ' conceal a note of pride. "He looked tor of ii a' me when he said it and I thought conduct l he was making - it personal. I told jquest p' him big-income men were worth : e Tabe 1 what they got and he said they aJ :,i were a lot of stuffed fools. I got ? hr ;! sore. I told him he couldn't handle on the p!' a $50'000 5b for a month, much lestra, sai'' less a year-" ction- of j Thatcher coughed a little, apol- Utah Syr! ogetically. :hed a dej! "I was a captain in the first e which:! world war. Infantry. Shrapnel." His hand moved to his right side. "They wouldn't take me the last time." jif'i He straightened. Breeze from the F . lake swept our smoke from the car. j . "Phillip Crasor said he had $5,000 " fj that said he could handle any $50,- 000 job for 12 months. Inherited the money from an aunt, I believe. IJo Anyway, he said for me to put up 'Vj'Jl or shut up. The fellows in the club . TT7j. 1 laughed, and I well, I lost my tem- '"J . per. I called him at ten to one, v, betting 50,000 against his five that !l !, -he couldn't handle the job. I was der the (: to name the job u wasn.t to be k one of 1 Impossible, or require technical skill n-'.ieditt- neither of us had. It was foolish, Nobody t" '3U' neither of us would back down. to Dnng. off Betting is strictly business with use that s , me u T win t conect, and if I e doing-. lose-. I pay off. Strictly business, ickens, so' j |
