"The thing's further advanced than we were any of us inclined to believe," he answered. "Every one of us is interested in this, you more than any of us. If Harrison's Bill passes the Senate, we are liable to imprisonment at any moment. We are up against it hard, Duge, and we can't face it as we ought while we're squabbling amongst ourselves like a set of children."
"You propose then," Phineas Duge said slowly, "to close our accounts on a mutual basis?"
"Precisely!" Weiss answered. "You have had the best of it, and it might be our turn to-morrow, so you can well afford to do this. We want to rest on our oars for a time, while we look round and face this new danger."
"Very well," Phineas Duge said, "I agree. We will meet at your office to-morrow and bring our brokers. I am quite willing to end this fight. It was not I who began it."
Higgins drew a little breath of relief. He was perhaps the poorest of the group, and it was his stock which Duge had been handling so roughly. "Thank heavens!" he said. "Now we can have a moment's breathing time, to see what we can do for these fellows who want to teach us how to manage our affairs."
"In the first place," Weiss said, "what about that paper we signed? I can understand your wanting to hold it over us while we were at war. It was a fair weapon, and you had a right to it, but now we are united again you can see, of course, that although your name isn't on it, it would practically mean ruin to our interests if the other side once got hold of it."
"If I had that paper," Duge said quietly, "I would tear it up at this moment, but I regret to say that I have not. It was stolen during my illness."
"We know that," Weiss answered. "We know even in whose hands it is."
Phineas Duge looked up inquiringly.
"Norris Vine has it," Weiss continued. "We have offered him a million, but he declines to sell. He would have used it for his paper before now, and we should have been on the other side of the ocean, but for the fact that John Drayton advised him not to. Now he has taken it with him to London. He is going to ask Deane's advice. At any moment the thing may come flashing back. We may wake up to find a copy of that document in black and white in every paper in New York State."