“You’ll have to know sooner or later,” he said. “I tender in the name of another man, and I pay him from ten to twenty per cent. of the amount I tender for the bare use of his name—if I get what I want. Oh, I know it’s rotten, but I have to stand for it or shut down. Your father did the same thing; you’ll have to do it, too. I’m not defending it. I’ll tell you more. This infernal political graft is everywhere. You can’t supply a foot of lumber to a contractor on any public work unless you stand in.”
Joe whistled astonishment, not unmixed with disbelief.
“Sounds pretty stiff, hey?” said Crooks. “Well, here’s something else for you to digest. There’s a concern called the Central Lumber Company, capitalized for a hundred thousand, composed of a young lawyer, a bookkeeper, a real estate man, and an insurance agent—individuals, mind you, who couldn’t raise ten thousand dollars between them—who have bought in timber lands and acquired going lumber businesses worth several millions. What do you think of that?”
Joe did not know what to think of it, and said so. The suspicion that Crooks was stringing him crossed his mind, but the old lumberman was evidently in deadly earnest.
“And now I’ll tell you one thing more,” said Crooks, instinctively lowering his voice. “I had an offer for my business some time ago, and I turned it down. It came through a firm of lawyers for clients unnamed. Since then I’ve had a run of bad luck. My sales have fallen off, I have trouble in my mills, and the railway can’t supply me with cars. There isn’t a thing I can fasten on, either.”
“Oh, you must be mistaken,” said Joe. It seemed to him that bad luck, which often runs in grooves, had given rise to groundless suspicions in Crooks’s mind.
“I’m not mistaken,” the latter replied. “I’m playing with a cold deck, and though I can’t see a blame thing wrong with the deal I notice I draw rags every time. That’s enough for me. I’m going to find out why, because if I don’t I may as well quit playing.” He banged his big fist viciously on the table. “I’ll know the reason why!” he thundered. “I will, by the Glory Eternal! If any gang of blasted high-bankers think they can run me out of my own business without a fight they miss their guess.”
His white hair bristled and his cold blue eyes blazed. Thirty years before he had been a holy terror with fists and feet. Few men then had cared to arouse Bill Crooks. Now the old fighting spirit surged up and took possession of him, and he was proceeding to stronger language when Miss Jack tapped imperatively at the door and opened it.
“May I come in? Dad, this isn’t playing fair. You’ve kept Joe all evening. Edith and I have been waiting alone for half an hour. Come in, Edith, and tell him what you think of him.”
“Well, you girls had four young fellows without Joe. How many do you want?”