Nordheim listened in silence, but with a frown, to this agitated explanation, by which, however, he seemed more surprised than offended; at last he said, coldly, "Wolfgang, I really do not understand you."
"Nor did I understand your letter requiring me to approve and sign that estimate. I thought, and I still think, that there is some mistake, and I wanted to ask you personally about it. I trust you can explain it to me."
The president shrugged his shoulders, but maintained the same cool, composed tone, as he replied, "You are a capital engineer, Wolfgang, but that you have no talent for business is quite clear. I hoped we should understand each other in this matter without many words, but, since that does not seem to be the case, we must come to an explanation. Do you suppose that I intend to withdraw from this undertaking with loss?"
"With loss? In any case you receive back your capital with interest."
"A transaction that brings in no more than that is to be reckoned as a losing one," said Nordheim. "I did not imagine you such a novice in business matters as to require to be told this. We have here a chance to make a profit,--a considerable profit. The railway, in fact, belongs to me. I called it into existence, my capital has been principally expended in its construction, the entire risk has been mine. I venture to think that you will not dispute my right to dispose of my property at any price I think fit."
"If that price is to be gained only by the means you have adopted, I do most decidedly dispute the right you speak of. Should the company receive the railway under such conditions, its bankruptcy will be certain. Even if the road be employed to the fullest extent it cannot bring in a sufficient income to indemnify it approximately for the amount of loss sustained; the entire enterprise must either go to ruin, or fall into the hands of some unprincipled schemer."
"And how does that concern us?" Nordheim asked, calmly.
"How does it concern us?" Elmhorst broke forth, indignantly. "To have the work which you devised, to which I have devoted my best energies, at the head of which stand our united names, go miserably to ruin or be an instrument in the hands of swindlers? It concerns me deeply, as I trust I shall be able to show you."
The president arose with an impatient wave of his hand: "Pray spare me such bursts of declamation, Wolfgang. They really are out of place in a business discussion."
The young man drew himself up; all emotion vanished from his face, giving place to an expression of cool contempt, and his voice was every whit as cold as the president's own as he replied, "I shall not content myself with mere declamation, as you will find, sir. Let me ask once for all, calmly and briefly, who furnished the figures upon which the estimates you sent me are based?"