‘So you want to invest in the business, that’s it, is it?’ asked Grandpa.
‘Yes,’ said Gney, ‘I will lend you my name and enough money to double your operation. That’s to start with. I think we could recruit some more people and spread out.’
‘That’s what I’ve always planned,’ said Grandpa, ‘a chain of chicken joints stretching across the known world.’
‘But you’ve done no work towards that!’ thought Emsie, although she was too polite to say.
‘And I’d be in charge?’ asked Grandpa.
‘In a way,’ agreed Gney.
‘How do we start?’ asked Emsie, who was surprised to have been involved in the discussion at all.
‘A good question,’ said Gney, ‘I think that you should take the existing business, maybe find some helpers and set off to the East.’
‘The East?’ asked Emsie, ‘No one goes to the East.’
‘That’s the point,’ agreed Gney, ‘expansion, new territories, that kind of thing.’
Emsie looked a little worried,
‘I’ve heard the people are strange,’ she said.
‘I’m sure they say that of us, too.’
‘What am I going to do?’ asked Grandpa, ‘while she’s swanking around having a good time in the East?’
‘Recruit,’ said Gney, ‘there might be a war here; that’s sure to make people hungry.’
‘For Grandpa’s chicken!’ said Grandpa.
‘I think you mean, “The Marshall’s Chicken,”’ said Gney in his most authoritarian tone.
‘I suppose I do,’ agreed Grandpa.
Emsie, who was a bit awed by the change and her new responsibility, went back to packing.