“I knew it. I knew it. All right. You can have the money. But I warn you. You’ll never see that stock again. You’ll be bankrupt a year from now.”
Nothing else was said.
Tillinghast treated John not as if John had adopted him but as if he had adopted John and his attitude about the steel plant was one of sacrosanct authority. He was really a cracked pot. It took six months to make the changes. Then they fired up. The first run was good steel, the second was poor, the third was good and the fourth was bad. They got so far that the steel made from the raw iron of one furnace would always be good. When they took the molten iron from two or more furnaces successively the results went askew again. Tillinghast cooed when the steel was good and was silent when it was bad. He could not deny that they were baffled and John had sunk two-thirds of everything he owned.
Thane was a constant onlooker. He looked hard and saw everything.
“It ain’t what you do to it afterward,” he said, breaking a long silence. “That’s the same every time. It’s back of that. It’s in the furnace.”
“Well, suppose it is,” said John. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Mix it,” said Thane.
“Mix what?”
“The molten iron from the blast furnaces before it goes to the steel converter.”
“What will you mix it with?”