Wimperley nodded gravely. "That sounds good to me. But I've got something else in my mind."
"Well," snapped Birch, "spit it out."
"I've got to go back a bit to a day you'll all remember, except you,
Birch."
"The day of hypnosis?" suggested Stoughton.
"I guess it was, if you like to put it that way. We were satisfied with what Clark told us and what we afterwards saw for ourselves, and we found him three millions, then another and another and so on. Now, as it stands and as it goes, I don't see any end to this thing. It's like throwing money into the rapids at St. Marys—a fresh sweep of water comes and carries it away. You see it glint for a moment and there's apparently no bottom to the river. The trouble with Clark is that he is not equipped with brakes. He can't stop. He's always the roof on one station and, at the same time, contracting for another one still further on. We've got to do the braking, that's all." He turned to Riggs, "How about it?"
"Well," said the little man out of the corner of his mouth. "It's our funeral just as much as Clark's. Why didn't we apply the brakes long ago?"
"You know as well as I do."
"I'm damned if I do."
"It's just because we're better business men in Philadelphia than we are when we get to St. Marys," grunted Stoughton reflectively. "We're outside the charmed circle down here, but when we get up there," he waved his hand, while the end of his cigar glowed like a miniature volcano, "we get locoed, the whole bunch of us."
"And yet," said Birch reflectively, "there's nothing the matter."