SIMPSON: You answer it, Carter.

[CARTER _goes to the telephone and picks it up in a somewhat
gingerly way._]

CARTER: Hello!... Yes.... Yes, it's The Gibson Upright.... No, he ain't
here.... What? Wait a minute. [_Puts his hand over the mouthpiece._] He
wants to know who it is talking.

FRANKEL: My goodness! Can't you tell him it's you?

CARTER: He wouldn't know who that was.

MIFFLIN: Tell him it's one of the owners of the company.

CARTER [_looks at_ MIFFLIN _solemnly; then in a hushed voice_]: It's one
of the owners of the company.... Wait a minute; let me get that. "The
Central Associated Lumber Companies?" I hear you. Wait a minute. [_Looks
round._] This here company says they want to lower their bid for a
couple hundred thousand feet o' lumber to forty-seven dollars a
thousand. They say that's a dollar lower than they offered yesterday and
a half a dollar lower than they offered this morning--says got to know
now.

FRANKEL: Says they come _down_ to forty-seven, do they?

CARTER: Yes; says so!

SIMPSON: Well, tell 'em that's good; we'll take it.