“Why,” says Mark, “I’ve f-found George Piggins, and I’ve got a l-legal option to your p-power site signed by him and his sister. You can go ahead with b-bustin’ our mill, and you kin t-take our dam, but we got your power site. That’s how I’ll do what I said.”
Every man there turned like their heads was all connected, to look at Wiggamore, and Wiggamore looked at Mark like he was seeing a ghost.
“I don’t believe it,” says he.
“I don’t ask you to,” says Mark.
“Have you that option with you, Mark?” says President James.
“Yes, sir.”
“Will you let me see it? Can you trust me that much?”
“Certainly, sir. I haven’t had any doubt from the m-m-minute I saw you.”
“Thank you,” says President James, and Mark handed him the option. He read it careful and passed it along to the others. Then he turned to Wiggamore, and his face was set and stern.
“So this is the way you’ve been working?” says he. “We hire you to do a job, and you go out and create a situation like this. You stoop to trickery and meanness, and let a whole community get the idea that you have our support and countenance in such ways. I have suspected it. I’ve suspected it in other cases—but I shall never have to worry about you again. You are through with us, Mr. Wiggamore. The Middle-West Power Company employs decent men only. I’m ashamed to have been associated with you. I’m ashamed of what people must think of me, of what you have made people think of me.... It doesn’t pay, Mr. Wiggamore. Here you have been tricky and crooked, and you have been beaten, and beaten badly by a boy. He has done you. Besides being a trickster and a disgrace to decent business, you are incompetent. Your connection with this company is severed from this instant. Good day, sir.”