"I didn't think of that at the time."

"Exactly. Now you see the other side of the picture. If you want half an
hour to make up your mind once and for all, take it. Consider carefully
what you'd like to be in the future: clerk or business man. Two pound a
week; or six, ten, twenty, fifty a week. That represents the difference
between the clerk and the business man in cold cash."

"I've made up my mind, sir," answered Dean firmly.

"Good!" said Lars Larssen, and held out his hand to his young employee.
"There's the right stuff in you!"

To have his hand shaken in friendship by the millionaire shipowner was
as strong wine to Arthur Dean. He flushed with pleasure as he stammered
out his thanks.

A couple of hours packed with feverish activity followed. Lars Larssen
knew that Clifford Matheson had the habit of carrying a small typewriter
with him on his journeys, in order to get through correspondence while
on trains and steamers. Many busy men carry them. This habit of
Matheson's was exceedingly useful for his present purpose. The letter
that Arthur Dean was to post off at Cherbourg--one to the Paris office
of Clifford Matheson and one of similar purport to the London
office--would only need the signature in holograph. Larssen had several
of Matheson's signatures on various letters that had passed between
them, and these he cut off and gave to his employee to copy.

He criticised the spacing and the general lay-out of the letter already
typed, showed Dean how to imitate Matheson's little habits of typing,