“Vallory, hah!—do I get the name right?—always want to get a man’s name right—demned awkward to find that you’ve been calling Smith Jones, when his name is Smith,” bubbled the welcomer. “Sit down—sit down, Mr. Vallory, and be at home. Of the Grillage Engineering Company, you say? Big job you’ve got on your hands here—tre-mendous job! How’s it coming along?”
David Vallory braced himself as one stepping out of shelter into a blustering March wind. Gusty talkers had always been his pet aversion, and he seemed to have encountered the original of the type. By taking persevering advantage of the lulls between the gusts he contrived to explain his errand. The Powder Can situation was thus and so. The Grillage company had no jurisdiction, and he understood that the Short Line company, in its capacity as owner of the town site, might possibly be able to intervene on the side of law and order. How about it?
“Why, hah! my dear Mr. Vallory! what do you take us for?” cackled the gusty one. “We’re not an eleemosynary institution, any more than you are! Why, hah! bless your heart, if we should go into the moral-issue business in these mountains we’d last as a railroad corporation just about as long as it would take an indignant State legislature to repeal our charter!”
“I must have stated the case clumsily, Mr. Jolly; I’m not asking you to do more than any respectable landlord ought to be willing to do,” David persisted firmly. “Your property in Powder Can is being put to uses which were never contemplated when the leases were signed. A public nuisance harmful to your neighbors has developed, and you ought to be willing to help abate it.”
“Nothing to be done, I assure you, my dear young man. Those Powder Can leases are mere matters of form, to enable us to hold what land we may need for railroad purposes after the new line is opened. I’m not sure, but I think the consideration was the usual one dollar, or something of that sort. We can’t police Powder Can for you.”
“All right; we’ll drop the moral argument and take up another,” said David, stubbornly. “The railroad company has set a time limit on the completion of this new line. The Powder Can nuisance is delaying the work.”
“That, hah! is up to your people, Mr. Vallory. The contract provides for forfeitures if you don’t come within the time limit, and a bonus if you better it. You can’t stand it on that leg.”
It was just here that David lost his temper.
“I’m not making any charges, Mr. Jolly, but an unprejudiced outsider might take the view that the railroad company, or some of its officials, are profiting by the continued existence of a wide-open town where our men are robbed.”
Instantly the moon-like face of the railroad attorney became a blank.