This railroad would bring the goods of the Joint-Stock Company into the markets of the world, where they could compete with the coal of Prussia and the English coal. But, it will be said, Ivan had the same chance; his coals were equally good, and the giant with the seven-mile boots would carry his coal as well as his enemies'. But here was where the shoes pinched. What was of use to the company was destruction to him.
The railway was not to run through the valley where his mine was situated, although that line was the best and most natural course to take; instead of which mountains had to be made level, tunnels had to be bored through the hills, to avoid his colliery and to carry the rails close to the company's mine. In consequence of this, Ivan would be obliged to make a circuit of a half-day's journey to get to the railway, and so the freightage to the station made his goods five or six per cent. dearer than those of the company. For him, therefore, the railroad was a crushing blow.
In the meantime the end of the year drew near, the time when the miners were to receive their share from the profits. But profit there was none. Neither coal nor iron had any sale. The company's low prices had taken every customer from Ivan.
Any one who possesses ready money can always say, even if he loses, that he wins; the common people call this eating your own entrails. Ivan had a sum by him, which he had carefully gathered in better days. It amounted, all told, to several thousands, and he calculated he could hold his own against his giant rivals for at least ten years. He forgot that the giants were cunning as well as strong, and that they did not despise the smallest artifice.
When the railway directors issued their prospectus, inviting all contractors to send in contracts for iron rails, etc., Ivan thought to himself, "Now, I will have some fun. The shareholders of the Joint-Stock Company offer their iron six per cent. cheaper than it costs them. I will offer to the railway directors to deliver iron rails at ten per cent. cheaper than they cost me. I shall lose fifty thousand gulden, but I shall have the satisfaction of punishing my neighbors for their folly in lowering the price of the raw material."
Simple fool! Just as an honorable gentleman imagines that when a letter is sealed no one would venture to open it, so Ivan thought that all the offers were read together, and that the most advantageous to the company was accepted.
Good gracious! nothing of the kind.
It is always settled beforehand who is to have the contract. When the proposals come in it sometimes happens that some one makes a yet lower offer than that of the protégé, and this last is then told to take pen and ink and write an offer proposing to give the goods half per cent. lower than the offer made by the outsider.
This is a well-known trick, and it is only men like Ivan, whose minds are occupied with petrifactions and the stars, who are in ignorance that such things are done.