"Gentlemin!" hissed Cassidy. "The sem agreemint that two gentlemin porch-climbers has whin wan climbs whilst th' other watches t' see is th' cop at th' upper ind av th' beat! Millions med whilst I'm wur-r-kin' f'r twinty per month an' what's slipped me—th' sem not buyin' manny jools ner private steamboats! Millions med! I know th' kind well!" Bean felt his own indignation rise with Cassidy's. He was seeing why they had feared to have him on the board of directors. Apparently they were bent on wrecking the company by a campaign of extravagance. The substance of what he gleaned from Cassidy's newspaper was that those directors had declared a stock dividend of 200 per cent. and a cash dividend of 100 per cent.
They were madly wrecking the company in which he had invested his savings. Such was his first thought. And they were crooks, as Cassidy said, because for two years they had been quietly, through discreet agents, buying in the stock from unsuspecting holders.
"Rascals," agreed Bean with Cassidy, having but slight gifts for character analysis.
"Tellin' th' poor dubs th' stock was goin' down with one hand an' buyin' it in with th' other," said the janitor, lucidly.
Bean was suddenly troubled by a cross-current of thought. When you wrecked a company you didn't buy in the stock—you sold. He viewed the headlines from a new angle. Those directors were undoubtedly rascals, but was he not a rascal himself? What about his own shares?
"Maybe there's something we don't understand about it," he ventured to Cassidy.
"I know th' kind well," persisted Cassidy. "Th' idle rich! Small use have they f'r th' wur-r-r-kin' man! Souls no wider than th' black av y'r nail!"
"Might have had good reasons," said Bean, cautiously.
"Millions av thim," assented Cassidy with a pointed cynicism. "An' me own father dyin' twinty-three years ago fr'm ixposure contracted in County Mayo!"
Bean returned the paper to its owner and went slowly in to Ram-tah. One of the idle rich! Well, that is what kings mostly were, if you came down to it. At least they had to be rich to buy all those palaces. But not necessarily idle. The renewed Ram-tah would not be idle. It was not idleness to own a major-league club.