"Who'll take 'em? We used up all our arguments long ago. Philadelphia doesn't want a mortgage on Robert Fisher, and what about the Pennsylvania farmer?"
"What about him?" asked Wimperley pettishly.
"As I know him, he's a bad loser--he works too hard for it. This is a case of new money from outside, and I for one don't feel like doing any traveling."
"In other words we've demonstrated that whether or not by any fault of ours, we've made a mess of it," said Stoughton with utter candor.
"And when Clark told us, months ago, that he wouldn't draw any salary, and that a lot of others were only drawing half salary to help out till the rail mill got going, we should have made provision for possible mistakes, and seen as well that we were getting in over our ears."
"But Clark believed all he told us," piped Riggs with a flash of loyalty.
"Of course he did, and he still does, and because he is still only twenty years ahead of his time he's all the more dangerous."
"Let's get back to this payroll," blurted Stoughton who was getting more and more uncomfortable.
"Fishing's pretty good up there, let him fish for it." The voice of Birch was like ice. He was one of those who by nature are fitted for cold and ruthless action in time of stress. Most of his money had been made across the dissecting table of enterprises, and not at their birth. He was a financial surgeon, but no midwife, and had only been magnetized into his past support by the hypnotic personality of Clark. He was grimly mindful that Marsham, after waiting for years for his opening, had got more than even. Birch's cold mind now wondered for the first time whether, after all, the cut throat game he had once loved to play was worth the candle. Here was American credit and effort massacred by American ruthlessness and revenge. Marsham had pounced upon a weak point in the Consolidated's armor and pierced deep into the body corporate. He had struck to kill.
"And would you shut down the pulp mill--market's good now?" persisted Stoughton.
"I'd rivet the whole thing tight. The railway never paid,--at least directly--that we could reckon. It's costing more to ship pulp on our own boats than the rate at which we could ship by contract--and if they are not going to bring back coke, why run them? Gentlemen, this means a smash--an interval of anxiety, discomfort, loss of prestige, and--"