“A mere detail to my effort, my time. What my timber will be worth, with what you throw on the market hawking up and down ... problematic.”
Gordon Makimmon hesitated, a plan forming vaguely, painfully, in his mind. Finally, “I might buy you out,” he suggested; “if you didn’t ask too dam’ much. Then I could do as I pleased with the whole lot.”
“Now that,” Valentine Simmons admitted, dryly cordial, “is a plan worth consideration. We might agree on a price, a low price to an old partner. You met the Company’s agents, heard the agreement outlined; a solid proposal. And, as you say, with the timber control in your own hands, you could arrange as you pleased with the people concerned.”
He grew silent, enveloped in thought. Then:
“I’ll take a hundred thousand for all the options I bought, for my interest in the partnership.”
“I don’t know as I could manage that,” Gordon admitted.
An unassumed astonishment marked the other’s countenance. “Why!” he ejaculated, “Pompey left an estate estimated at—” he stopped from sheer surprise.
“Some of the investments went bad,” Gordon continued; “down in Stenton they said I didn’t move ’em fast enough. Then the old man had a lot laid out in ways I don’t hold with, with people I wouldn’t collect from. And it’s a fact a big amount’s got out here lately. Of course it will come back, the most part.”
Simmons’ expression grew skeptical.
“I know you too,” Gordon added; “you’ll want the price in your hand.”