A hot flush swept over Allison’s face, but it was gone in an instant.
“It happens that I need the new Gulf and Great Lakes system,” he went on, in a perfectly level voice; “and I prefer to buy it from you at a fair price.”
Dalrymple put on his hat.
“It isn’t for sale,” he stated.
“Just a minute, Dalrymple,” interposed Allison. “I want to show you something. Look in here,” and he opened the library door.
Dalrymple stepped to the opening and saw, not merely seven men, middle-aged and past, sitting around a library table, but practically all the freightable necessities of the United States and practically all its money, a power against which his many million dollar railroad system was of no more opposition than a toy train.
“—the transportation department to be governed by a council composed of the representatives of the various other departments herein mentioned,” droned on the voice of Babbitt.
The representatives of the various other departments therein mentioned were bent in concentrated attention on every sentence, and phrase, and word, and syllable of that important document, not omitting to pay important attention to the pauses which answered for commas; and none looked up. Dalrymple closed the door gently.
“Now will you sell?” inquired Allison.
For a moment the two men looked into each other’s eyes, while the old enmity, begun while they were still in the womb of time, lay chill between them. At one instant, Dalrymple, whose jaw muscles were working convulsively, half raised his hands, as if he were minded to fall on Allison and strangle him; and it was not the fact that Allison was probably the stronger man which restrained him, but a bigger pride.