“Better wait till I ask you,” said Barker.
“No, because this is a serious thing for us. I want to make it plain that we recognize your right to buy anywhere, and for any price you choose to pay. That’s all right. You needn’t have given any reason at all. But the reason you did give was not the true one, and we both know it. Now, man to man, Mr. Barker, tell me what we’re up against. Why didn’t we get the contract?”
“Well,” said Barker hesitatingly, “there is something in what you say. I don’t mind telling you this much: There are a holy lot of wires in our business, and we have to stand in with the people who pull them, see? Sometimes we have to buy where we’re told, no matter what the price is. We get square in other ways. That’s about what happened in this case, otherwise you would have got the order.”
Wright felt quite elated when he took his departure, for he had justified his contention that they had not been underbidden. Wright’s business was to cut logs into lumber and sell the lumber. William Kent had looked after the logging end of the concern. The limits, the camps, and the drives were his field. What logs he did not sell he handed over to Wright and thought no more about, knowing that they would be worked up into everything from rough boards to matched flooring. Wright, then, having ascertained the reason of the throw down, accepted it philosophically as arising from circumstances beyond his control. But young Kent, when he received his manager’s report, was not so philosophic.
“Pretty rotten state of affairs if people have to buy where they are told,” he fumed. “Nice free country we inhabit! I never took much stock in such yarns, but I’m beginning to see that there may be something in them.”
He took his troubles to Crooks, who listened, growled profane comment, but offered no advice. When Kent had gone he went to Locke’s office. Locke heard him with attention.
“What does the boy think about it?” he asked.
“So far,” Crooks replied, “he’s more indignant because Barker & Smith have to buy somewhere else than because he can’t sell to them. Same thing in one way, of course. But he’s looking at it from what he thinks is their standpoint. Says it’s an outrage that they have to buy where they’re told.”
“Now I wonder,” said Locke thoughtfully, “if we may go a step further? I wonder if they are told where not to buy?”
“By George!” exclaimed Crooks.