Kent was dining with Ormsby in the grill-room of the Camelot Club when the waiter brought in the evening edition of the Argus, whose railroad reporter had heard the preliminary fizzing of the bomb fuse. The story was set out on the first page, first column, with appropriate headlines.
WAR TO THE KNIFE AND THE KNIFE
TO THE HILT!
TRANS-WESTERN CUTS COMMODITY RATE.
Great Excitement in Railroad Circles.
Receiver Guilford's Hold-up.
Kent ran his eye rapidly down the column and passed the paper across to Ormsby.
"I told you so," he said. "They didn't find the road insolvent, but they are going to make it so in the shortest possible order. A rate war will do it quicker than anything else on earth."
Ormsby thrust out his jaw.
"Have we got to stand by and see 'em do it?"
"The man from Massachusetts says yes, and he knows, or thinks he does. He has been here two weeks now, and he has nosed out for himself all the dead-walls. We can't appeal, because there is no decision to appeal from. We can't take it out of the lower court until it is finished in the lower court. We can't enjoin an officer of the court; and there is no authority in the State that will set aside Judge MacFarlane's order when that order was made under technically legal conditions."
"You could have told him all that in the first five minutes," said Ormsby.