“Don’t strain at a gnat, Trefethen. You’re new to this business of absorbing small corporations, but if you want to do large work you’ve got to get used to it. If you believe in evolution you must see the reasonableness. The big beast preys on the little one through nature, and you can’t stop with a jerk when you get to man. We’re part of the scheme. Like the other beasts, if we want to live we’ve got to eat small fry.”
“Live!” said Trefethen, and he threw a glance around the circle of multi-millionaires, and gave a short laugh.
Van Vechten spoke. “All this is a side-issue,” and his glittering small eyes ranged about. “The point is whether our railroad can afford to let the old Southwestern, with its large business as a carrier of both passengers and produce, and with the prejudice of habit in its favor, continue to exist. If we do, the Imperial can’t be a great railroad. We shall not only be forced to divide profits—we shall have to contend for our existence. The Southwestern stands for equal rates, and other theories worthy but impracticable. It will bend our policy into the same lines. At this moment we are richer than they, and can force them to sell—it is lack of business initiative to hesitate. As to brutality, I don’t take that seriously—sentiment has nothing to do with business. What reason, as reasons are known in affairs, is against our absorbing the Southwestern?” As the chilly tones fell, the men who listened saw no reason. Trefethen sighed as if he were tired.
“Of course,” he said. “I meant it; but I was mistaken. It’s my first affair of the sort, as Carroll said, and I’m not used to it. But it’s got to be done. The American Beauty rose at its finest is only obtained by nipping off buds. Well, we’ll make the Imperial an American Beauty, and nip off the Southwestern to begin.”
As simply as a golf club committee arranging for new greens details were settled, and the meeting ended; clerks in the great offices lifted their heads to look sharply as the members of it filed out, for this in flesh and blood was the plutocracy about which one read in the papers. The most important of them all, left alone, turned to the calendar on his desk, where his time was spaced into half-hour, sometimes into fifteen-minute divisions, to see what came next. As he whirled about on his swinging chair, a knock sounded at the door. Young Haywood opened it.
“The Assistant Secretary of the Treasury had an appointment at this hour, sir.”
“Yes.”
“He telegraphs that he is detained in Washington and cannot be here till to-morrow.”
“Very well.” But Haywood stood in the doorway. Marcus Trefethen lifted his head. “That’s all.”
“Yes, sir”—the young man hesitated. “I’m sorry to trouble you, but there’s a lady here—”