"He's discovering now the great truth of something any old friend Emory Storrs used to say—Emory always was in debt, or wanted to be, and says he: 'There's no trouble about prosperity in this country; there's plenty of money—the only trouble is in the confounded scarcity in collateral.' Well, he goes over to this young man, who is standing out for some reason best known to himself, and he tries to get him to come through, and he doesn't come through. What's left? Why, the diamond lightnings of the Lady of the Lightnings—and his International Power stock.
"Meantime, all this thing can't be kept entirely secret; that is to say, the market part of it can't be. But we sit tight, all of us. We hold our regular directors' meetings of the International board, and we smile, and look pleasant. We don't know a thing about his hot water experiences in the open market. He explains to us why this and that happens, or doesn't happen, in International; and we smile and look pleasant, and we don't know a thing. After a time it's up to him and the Lady of the Lightnings. Something pops! He's up against it, all except his International Power. Then Van, and you, Standley, and you, Ack, and you, and you and I, and all of us—why we're still pleasant as pie to him and we say, 'Well, Mr. John Rawn, if you'd only sell us two or three shares of International, we'd pay you twenty times what it's worth—but it's very much cheaper now—by reason of Van's competing company!'
"That's about all, I think!"
The others nodded silently. The game was not new to them, and even in its most complicated features might have been called simple, with resources such as theirs. If these resources had made Rawn, they could unmake him. It was all in the day's work for them.
"So I'll tell you what we'll do," concluded the old financier after a time. "We'll just let you and Van look around here a little bit and see what more you can learn. You're one of the real directors of International Power to-day, Van. Mr. Rawn is on the minority and the toboggan list, or is going to be there. We'll take the first steps when we see the boys down East. The country's getting right now for a little speculation—things have been dead long enough. There'll be a market. When the market starts, I think you know which way it will go for a certain person I needn't name."
IX
They rose, stood about loungingly for a time, and at length slowly separated, the older man and the ex-director with the pointed beard falling back of the others for just an instant.
"What's the truth about the row, Van?" demanded the old man, laying a large, pudgy hand on the other's shoulder.
"I don't know, honestly, what it is. I can tell you this much—your factory is closed. Your superintendent, Halsey, has quit his work and left his old residence. Didn't Rawn tell you that?"
"No! What's up now—some trouble with a woman? Wasn't he married to Rawn's daughter?"