"Look here, Clark, I don't know the reason for this fool expedition, none of us do, but it serves well enough to lead up to the point of other fool expeditions on a larger scale."
"Yes?" said Clark with a lift in his voice.
"It does. Now I'd like to go back about four years when you said that three millions would do you. In between now and then is a long story and I haven't got breath to tell it, but to-day you've had seven and we're deeper in the woods than ever we were."
"Go ahead, I'm following you."
"The long and the short of it is that we've had enough."
"Of me?" The voice was very quiet.
"Yes, damn it, of you; that is, in your present position of general manager. You can have one or two of the subsidiary companies but not the whole darn thing, and—"
"The point is," cut in Wimperley, "that we're afraid of you. We've not paid a dividend and, as things go, there's not any likelihood that we ever will. It's not easy to talk like this, and don't think we under-estimate what you've done. No other man I know of could have done it, but there's a limit to the money available in the State of Pennsylvania for this business—and we've reached it—that's all."
"And if you want to know what's upset the apple-cart," chirped Riggs with a little shiver—for they were all taking turns by now—"it's that fool proposal to build a railway through this ungodly wilderness." The little man glanced about him with visible abhorrence.
"And a blast furnace without any ore," concluded Stoughton heavily.