“Almost immediately,” replied the president. “I suppose there’ll be a change in policies.”
“Not at all,” Allison reassured him, and walked into the board room, where less than a dozen stockholders, as old and decrepit as the road itself, had congregated.
The president, following him, invited him to a seat next his own chair, and laid before him a little slip of paper.
“This is the official slate which had been prepared,” he explained, with a smile which it took some bravery to produce.
“It’s perfectly satisfactory,” pronounced Allison, glancing at it courteously, and the elderly stockholders, knotted in little anxious groups, took a certain amount of reassurance from the change of expression on the president’s face.
The president reached for his gavel and called the meeting. The stockholders, grey and grave, and some with watery eyes, drew up their chairs to the long table; for they were directors, too. They answered to their names, and they listened to the minutes, and waded mechanically through the routine business, always with their gaze straying to the new force which had come among them. Every man there knew all about Edward E. Allison. He had combined the traction interests of New York by methods as logical and unsympathetic as geometry, and where he appeared, no matter how pacific his avowed intentions, there were certain to be radical upheavings.
Election of officers was reached in the routine, and again that solemn inquiry in the faded eyes. The “official slate” was proposed in nomination. Edward E. Allison voted with the rest. Every director was re-elected!
New business. Again the solemn inquiry.
“Move to amend Article Three Section One of the constitution, relating to duration of office,” announced Allison, passing the written motion to the secretary. “On a call from the majority of stock, the stockholders of the L. and C. Railroad have a right to demand a special meeting, on one week’s notice, for the purpose of re-organisation and re-election.”
They knew it. It had to come. However, three men on the board had long held the opinion that any change was for the better, and one of these, a thin, old man with a nose so blue that it looked as if it had been dyed to match his necktie, immediately seconded.