Will you take the place , Dan ? '' `` I will if you think I can fill it , sir . I will do my best . '' `` Yes , I believe you will . Perhaps I know more about you than you think . Businessmen must keep their eyes open . We 'll regard this matter as settled then . Come up tomorrow at eight o'clock . And one word more , Dan . You have perhaps heard that I am an unjust and hard master . I am not the former , and you will never have occasion to find me the latter if you are always as truthful and straightforward as you have been today . You might easily have deceived me in this matter . That you did not do so is the best and only recommendation I require . Take those trout up to my house and leave them . That will do . Good afternoon . '' Dan somehow got his dazed self through the glass door and out of the building . The whole interview had been such a surprise to him that he was hardly sure whether or not he had dreamed it all . `` I feel as if I were some person else , '' he said to himself , as he started down the hot white road . `` But Mother was right .
I 'll stick XXXXX her motto .
about as at if in than that through to whether