Roger shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette. "Honestly, Joe, I don't get you at all. What's all the fuss about anyway?"
"Good God, man," cried Faxon in exasperation. He drew a long breath, and, drawing his chair up closer to Roger's, began an elementary explanation of certain business relationships.
In the meanwhile Bassett and Jenkins and Good sat staring moodily at one another.
"It's a shame!" exclaimed Bassett, savagely chewing on his unlighted cigar. "He'll twist that kid around his finger. He'll pull the wool over his eyes forty different ways."
"Faxon's a clever fellow," mused Jenkins mournfully.
Good filled his pipe and lighted it. He smoked in silence for a little while.
"The Lord's got to be trusted some time," he sighed finally; "I suppose it might just as well be now—but a little more priming would have helped. Just a little more."
"Oh, the kid will knuckle under, that's certain," snarled Bassett. "There's no doubt of that. This whole proposition is doomed to failure. It's too good to be true, altogether too good. I tell you, Good, you're asking too much of these people. You're trying to make water rise higher than its source. You're trying to make them prove superior to their whole history, their environment, their friends, everything they've got."
"People prove superior to those things every day," said Good mildly.
"Not when they have to pay as big a price as you're asking."