“He is—as slow as he can. Ryan says we can’t have the law on him for breach of contract yet. I had him write a letter makin’ a bluff, an’ Kent’s lawyer wrote back callin’ it. So there ye are.”
“Well, I suppose it can’t be helped,” said Mr. Ackerman regretfully. But on the whole he was very well satisfied with the position of affairs, and left Clancy’s office wearing the peculiarly bland, guileless smile which was his whenever he had succeeded in arranging a particularly unpleasant programme for some one else. The smile, however, lost something of its quality when, just outside the street door, he ran into Locke.
The lawyer glanced from him to Clancy Brothers’ window lettering and back again, and smiled. His expression somehow reminded Mr. Ackerman of a dog that has found an exceedingly choice bone.
“Hallo, Ackerman!” said he. “What are you framing up now?”
“I don’t think I understand you,” said Mr. Ackerman with dignity.
“Well, here’s something I wanted to ask you,” Locke went on. “Is it a fact that the O. & N.—otherwise Garwood—has secured control of the Peninsular?”
The question was so entirely unexpected that Mr. Ackerman was almost caught off his guard, but he said:
“Control of the Peninsular? You must be joking.”
“It is not a fact, then?” asked Locke.
“He may have bought some shares. But control—oh, no! that would be most unlikely. Our shares are all too strongly held.”