He was listening, his head a little bent, to the even flow of words. John did not dare to think ahead or see more than one minute at a time. For two weeks his one thought had been to get through this meeting.... He had planned, the day carefully.... It was after the periods of heavy sleep that Simeon was most like himself and he had wakened him from a long nap this morning, brushing his clothes and placing the papers in his hand.
“It is the fifth, sir,” he had said.
And Simeon had looked at him with a bit of the old, keen smile.
“You are to meet the directors,” said John close in his ear, “You remember?” He looked at him anxiously.
Simeon had nodded reassuringly. “I know. I ’m all right—I can look all right.” He had said it almost like himself.
And then John had taken him by the arm and led him to the door of the Room and pushed him in. Only at the door had he dared release his hold.
But he need not have feared. To the president of the “B. and Q.” Road, the green table—with those mighty, iron-bounded men around it—was like a challenge. He had entered the room with positive eclat; and now he sat with quiet face listening to the report, a little cynical smile edging his lips.
It was the look the directors knew well
They trusted it as they looked up from their paper.....It was the old, dividend look.
John’s eye dropped to it for a moment and his voice quickened a little. He had come to a difficult part of the report. It was delicate treading here—“Equipment for the coming year: Thirty-nine new engines will be needed—twelve of the big Pacific type, the numbers running from 3,517 to 3,528, and ten combination fast freight and passenger engines of the 2,000 series. The other seventeen....”