“'It is,' I said.
“'You don't know me, and it isn't necessary,' he whispered. 'I have a simple business proposition to make, and all you need to know about me is the amount of my roll: I'll give you a hundred and fifty thousand dollars now if you'll favor the Erie side in this fight.'”
The gentleman looked at me and laughed.
“I can imagine your answer,” I said.
“No, you can't,” said he. “It was the most telling, off-hand effort of my life.”
“You hit him over the head,” I suggested.
“So I did; and down he went,” said McCarthy. “It was brutal, but there's nothing in the books to tell a gentleman how he should act when a man tries to buy his honor.” He laughed again, and went on: “I just followed my own impulse and let fly. Sorry I lost my temper, but it's done now. It's a bad situation we're in here. Huge sums of money are dangled before men, and the weak go down. The Commodore has to hold up his end, I suppose. He's got to beat them or they'll ruin him, and then he finds some excuse in the great cause he stands for. I don't blame him so much, but I'm going to keep out of it for a while. It's got to be a matter of matching fortunes, and I'm sick of it. By-and-by I'll step into the firing-line.”
Before the skirmishing ended, however, Drew deserted his camp, and the other captains of the enemy quickly came to terms, and the breach in the foundations of the house of Vanderbilt had been repaired. But the Commodore had had enough of Erie, and decided “to let those miserable suckers alone.”
The battle was ended.
My friends, we may well regret the evils that came of it, but I, for one, rejoice that a commercial enterprise involving the growth and welfare of a continent remained in the hands of a builder and fell not to the kings and princes of destruction.