“Dear, dear; what a world this is!” sighed Carfax gently. “Sold them their own land back again, did he? And then what?”
Hartridge’s smile was genially cynical.
“I think it took the able Mr. Parker all of four months, or possibly a little longer, to squeeze the local stockholders—the only investors who had contributed any real values—out of his scheme; after which he sold the reorganized Ocoee to a New England syndicate. The Yankees—pardon me; the word is no longer a term of reproach with us—the Yankees meant honestly by the Ocoee; though, of course, they were under no obligation to recognize the frozen-out natives. They spent money liberally in development and on a costly equipment. But it proved to be a bad investment for them—as it had for the natives.”
“Ah,” murmured Carfax. “Now I am better able to understand President Caswell’s attitude. In strict justice, he would say, the mine belongs to those earliest investors who contributed the land and bought the stock; or at least these early people should have an equity in it. These later—er—Yankees had no ethical rights; hence their venture was bound to be ill-starred. By Jove, Tregarvon,”—and here Carfax’s lisp became quite apparent—“that puts the black mark on you, too, doesn’t it?”
If Carfax had any diplomatic designs on the dinner-guest, Tregarvon was not a party to them.
“I only know that my father paid good money for the Ocoee,” he said bluntly; “paid it to these same Yankees you are telling us about, Mr. Hartridge, when they were ready to lie down. It is up to me to prove that they didn’t stick him as bad as they doubtless believed they were sticking him when they pulled him into it.”
Carfax, who was observing the dinner-guest narrowly, saw the sign he had been watching for flit into the pale-blue eyes of Mr. William Wilberforce Hartridge; a half-smile of gratified derision.
“You think Vance isn’t very likely to make good on his little brag, professor?” he put in, firing a pointblank shot at the target.
There was no indication that the shot had gone home, unless it lay in the quick veiling of the pale-blue eyes.
“Who am I, that I should take out a license as a prophet of evil, Mr. Carfax?” was the quiet rejoinder. “He is a brave man nowadays who has the assurance to deny anything whatever to youth, vigor, and the spirit of modern industry.”