"You, Duncan, are to start for New York on the seven o'clock train this morning. Leave your proxy with Stafford to vote your stock in the present company, and——"
"What's your plan, Hallam?" interrupted Stafford.
"To give old Napper Tandy the very hardest lesson he's ever had to learn at my hands. You and I will call a meeting of the company immediately, and make Duncan president."
"But how are we to get rid of Tandy?"
"Ask him to resign, and kick him out if he doesn't. But listen! We've no time to waste. We'll reorganize this company—making it a real railroad company to build the road, instead of being the mere projecting company it is now. You and I and Duncan will put all the money we can spare into it, and we'll make every man in Cairo who's got anything beyond funeral expenses put it in. All the subscriptions already made to the inducement fund we'll convert into permanent stock subscriptions. Then, with the county, city, and town subscriptions in hand, we'll have about four millions of our stock subscribed. We must have twelve millions of stock in all. It is for you, Duncan, to find the rest in New York. You must see capitalists and persuade them to go in with us, as subscribers, either to the stock or to the construction bonds that we'll issue. You are to use your own judgment and we'll back you up."
"What are you going to do with Temple?"
"Make him chief engineer to the company, and set him at work surveying and locating the line at once. It's now three o'clock. You must go and pack your trunk, Duncan. I'll telegraph you in New York, telling you everything you need to know. Take your copy of our private cipher code with you, in case we should have confidential communications to make. Go, now. I'll smooth your way by telegraphing our correspondents in New York, and the officers of the Fourth National, asking them to help you. Stafford, you'd better go home, now. You're getting along in life, you know, and need your sleep." Stafford was about ten years younger than Hallam.
So ended a conference that was destined, by the success or failure of its purpose, to decide the fate of a great enterprise and the future of a thriving city—to say nothing of the career of a brilliant young man.