"Well, I ought to have told you that we haven't got a good ready yet to begin work on the new line from here to Columbia, and we haven't yet succeeded in buying a controlling interest in the Northern road," said Hildreth.
"You never told me," said Braine, but without any look of surprise at the information, "that you contemplated doing anything with the Northern road, after you shut it off the river front by the levee transfer."
"Didn't I? That must have been an oversight. Well I'll tell you now. I'll be perfectly frank, Braine, for we're all in one boat you know. Our plan was to sell Northern down to the breaking point on the strength of its being cut off from the river, and then, when the bottom dropped out of it, to go in and buy up a controlling interest, consolidate the road with the Central, and send the stock up again."
"Why didn't you carry out the plan?" asked Braine, with languid interest. "It looks like a very good one."
"That's where the trouble lies. Somebody else sold the stock short on the quiet before we began, and he must have made a pile on the operation too, for the market was sold so deep that when we touched it, it tumbled to pieces like a barrel with the hoops off. And then when we began to buy on the broken market, we found another block in our way. Somebody had quietly bought while we were selling, and now holds a big block of the stock off the market. We've bought every share we can get, till we've sent the market up to where it was before the break, and even a little higher, but we can't get enough to control."
"What do you mean to do about it?" queried Braine.
"We're waiting for the fellow to weaken, and that's where the trouble comes in. Your article will stiffen him up like thunder. You must admit that you were too previous this time, Braine."
"Perhaps so. But what do you suggest now?"
"Well, we count on you to patch things up. Can't you get up some news about the thing, to knock out the impression you've made?"
"No," answered Braine, "that would never do. The first condition of success in journalism is never to print false and misleading news."