Justin drummed with his fingers on the desk without answering.
“You have proof?”
“What’s the sense of talking, Leverich? Proof or no, I tell you, I can’t use it. This isn’t any funny business, you can see that. Don’t you suppose, if I could use it, that I would? But there are some things a man can’t do—at any rate, I can’t. And that settles it.”
Heaven knows he had gone over the matter insistently enough in the last few days, since the combination had been unwillingly given into his hands, but always with the foregone conclusion. The devil—granting that there is one,—doesn’t, as a rule, actively try to tempt us to evil—he simply confuses us, so that we are kept from using our reason. But this time he had no field for action. To use secret information against Cater, that could never have been had but for Cater’s kindness to him in helping him to those bars in time of need, was first, last, and every time impossible to Justin Alexander. It was vain for argument to suggest that this very deed of kindness had worked his disaster—the fact remained the same. He might do other things, he might do worse things—this thing he could not do, not though the refusal worked his own ruin, not though Cater’s ruin with Hardanger was insured anyway, but too late for the typometer to profit by it. Even if the typometer could by some means keep afloat until that day arrived, it would take a couple of years for such a timing-machine to regain its prestige in a foreign country.
Justin had no excess of sentiment, no quixotic impulse urged him to go and tell Cater what he had learned. It was Cater’s business to look after his end of the game, if the price of material or labor was too cheap, he must know that there was something wrong with it. The stream of Justin’s mind ran clear in spite of that feeling of sharp practice toward himself—nay, because of it; it was impossible to use the weapon that a former kindness had placed in his hand. He looked at Leverich now with an expression which the latter quieted himself to meet. This was a situation, not for bluster and rage, but to be competently grappled with.
“How about your obligations? Do you call this fair dealing to us, Alexander? There’s Lewiston’s note—once this deal was settled we would have paid that, as you know. But it’s out of the question as things stand. We’ll have to get our money out the best way we can. If this is your sense of honor—to sacrifice your friends! See here, Alexander, let’s talk this out. When it comes to talking of ruin, no man can afford to stand on terms. We didn’t put you into the typometer business on any kindergarten principles—it isn’t to form your character. What we did, we did for profit; and if the profit isn’t there, we get out. We’ve no objection to doing a kindness for anyone, if we can do it and make a profit, but it stands to reason that we’re not in the business for philanthropy any more than for kindergartening. We liked you, and we were willing to give you a place in the game if you could run it to suit us, but we don’t consider any scheme that doesn’t make money—what doesn’t make money has to go. Profit, profit, profit—that’s what every sane man puts first, and there’s no justice in losing a chance to make it. What you lose, another man takes—if you make another man’s wife and children better off, you stint your own. You’ve got to consider a question on all sides. No woman respects a man who can’t make money; it’s his everlasting business to make money, and she knows it. Your wife won’t think much of your fine scruples if she’s to go without for ’em—and, by the Lord, she’s right! When you go into business, you’ve got to make up your mind to one of two things: you’ve either got to step hard on the necks of those below you, or you’ve got to lie down and let them wipe their feet on you.”
Leverich had stopped at intervals for comment from Justin. Since none was offered, he went on, with the large and easy manner of one who feels the justice of his convictions: “No man ever accused me of being close. I’m free-handed, if I say it that shouldn’t. I like to give, and I do give. If there’s money wanted for charity, the committees know very well where to come. And my wife likes to give, too; her name’s on the books of twenty charitable organizations. But we give out of money I’ve made by not being free-handed—by getting every last cent that belonged to me. You see, I don’t leave my wife out of my calculations—any man’s a fool that does. She’s got the right to have as good as I can give her. I wouldn’t talk like this to most men, Alexander, but between you and me it’s different. It pays to keep your wife in a good humor, when you’ve got to go home after a hard day’s work; you take a dissatisfied woman, and she’ll make your home a hell. I know men—Great Scott! I don’t know how they live!” He paused again. Justin did not answer. He sat with his head on his hand, looking, not at Leverich, but to one side of him.
“When I say I’ve made the money,” continued Leverich, “I mean that I actually have made most of it—made it out of nothing! like the first chapter of Genesis. If a man has money to start with, he can add to it as easily as you can roll up a snowball—it’s no credit to him. But I’ve had only my brains. I’ve seen money where other men couldn’t, and nothing has stood in my way of getting to it; that’s the whole secret of success. And my attitude’s fair—you couldn’t find a fairer. When one of your clerks falls sick, you pay him his full salary for three or four months till he’s around again. I know! Well, I don’t do any such stunts. When I was a clerk myself, I was on the sick-list once for three months, and nobody paid me. After the first month I was bounced, and I didn’t expect anything else. I didn’t expect any philanthropical business, and I don’t give it. That’s fair, isn’t it? I don’t give quarter, and I don’t expect any. If I’m squeezed, I pay. I don’t stand still in the middle of a deal and snivel about what I can do and what I can’t do. I don’t snivel about what you call moral obligations; I only recognize money obligations. Why, see here, Alexander,” he broke off, “if you use the influence you spoke of, you don’t have to tell me what it is—you don’t have to tell anybody but Hardanger. Cater himself needn’t know that you had anything to do with it.”
“But I’d know,” said Justin quietly.
Leverich lost his easy manner; his jaw protruded.