Ray found himself waiting for his father to say yes. He realized, with some surprise, that part of him hoped he would. It would be safe. It would be finished. Nobody could say the old man had gambled and lost.
"What would you do with it?" Earl asked.
Gordon blinked. "Do with it?"
"The business. What would you do with it?"
"Run it," Gordon said. "Fold it into my service operation. Use the parts inventory to support older machines my customers already have. Expand it across all my locations. Frankly, Earl, there's demand for this I didn't know about. My service departments turn away older machines every week because we can't get parts. Your people don't turn anybody away."
"Your people turned Walter Briggs away," Earl said.
Gordon's smile flickered. "Walter's tractor wasn't worth fixing, by any normal standard."
"And yet I fixed it."
"Exactly. That's my point. That's what I want to buy."
---
Earl looked down at the paper for a long moment. Then he slid it back across the desk.
"No," he said.
The office was very quiet.
"Earl," Gordon said carefully. "You might want to think about it. Talk it over with your family."
"I don't need to. I appreciate the offer. It's a fair price, I expect, for what you think you're buying." Earl folded his hands on the desk. "But you're not trying to buy tractors, Gordon. You're not trying to buy parts. You could go to auctions and buy all the old tractors you want. Nobody'd bid against you. You didn't bid against me."
Gordon said nothing.