"What reasons?" he exclaimed harshly.
"I do owe them a certain gratitude for backing me. They did it selfishly, but they did it. And I'm too darned human to forget that they did it."
"Too darned inhuman, you mean," interjected Macgowan cynically.
Armstrong shrugged. "I'm not an automatic machine, and don't want the reputation of being one. It's because I'm human, Mac, that we've got nearly sixteen thousand investors on our books, letting us handle their money. Next year, twenty thousand. I don't believe in using a man for what you can get out of him, then kicking him off the pedestal. Findlater may be a fool and a crook, but he helped us. I don't care to be known as a business machine; can't afford it. The business of to-day and to-morrow isn't being run that way."
"Chivalric balderdash!" Macgowan growled and mouthed his cigar. "Ever hear of Don Quixote?"
Armstrong, eyeing his friend, burst suddenly into a laugh.
"What's got into you, Mac? Are you talking what you believe, or what you think is for my good?"
"For your own good, Reese! Damn it, I know this game better than you!" Macgowan's burst of words came with the fury of repressed energy. Now appeared the hitherto unguessed side of the man, the angry, passionate arrogance of his mind which was usually so well covered from sight. "Those fellows would kick you out this minute if they could—you and me both! That shyster Findlater would knife you in the back if he had a chance. The very thought of our earnings, of our funds, makes 'em sweat to get their paws on the money! You fool, you're in business! Why don't you realize it?"
Armstrong surveyed him with cheerful good humor, refusing to take this outburst seriously.
"Regular line of Old Testament bunk, Mac! And you don't mean a word of it. As you know very well, we're in business with a New Testament; a covenant of success to all, not merely to those who have the quickest gun."