“Yes, that is true. But that was not because your uncle is a difficult man to get along with in the ordinary day to day business. He is a charming and agreeable old gentleman for whom I entertain a great deal of respect and affection. My father was undiplomatic, aggressive and extremely capable. For a quarter of a century he dominated the affairs of Casson and Pritchard, and before he died he warned me if I should take his place in the firm to do likewise.” He was silent, looking out of the window at the ferryboats. “A horrible legacy,” he said. “I loathe dominating people.”
“Uncle John always resented your father’s domination.”
“I have observed that most people resent that which is good for them. Since my father’s death your uncle has evinced a disposition to run hog-wild with power, as the senior member of the firm. The sublimated old jackass!”
“My uncle is nothing of the sort, Dan Pritchard.”
He disregarded her protest, because he knew she had protested out of a sense of loyalty to an uncle who had stood in the place of a father to her since her fifth birthday. And John Casson, he knew, was both kind and indulgent. But he also knew that Maisie knew her relative was exactly what Dan Pritchard had called him.
“The first time Mr. Casson disregarded my youth and lack of business experience and jumped in over his head,” Dan continued, “I hauled him out by the simple method of disregarding him and insuring all of our ledger accounts, because one of them was very doubtful. Well, we collected that insurance and all we were out was the premium. Your uncle talked of suicide when he thought he had ruined both of us, but when he discovered I’d saved the firm he accepted about seventy-five per cent of the credit for my perspicacity. In those days, Maisie, it wasn’t necessary for us to have a very heavy loss in order to be embarrassed or ruined. All that saved us the last time was the war, which caught us with a flock of schooners on long time charters at low freight rates.
“Why, Maisie, I haven’t dared to leave him alone for years. He is no longer a young man, and his naturally uncertain judgment hasn’t improved with age. From August, nineteen fourteen, when the Great War began until April, nineteen seventeen, when this country joined with the Allies, I admit I gambled. I gambled everything I had and I induced your uncle to gamble everything he had, and between us we committed Casson and Pritchard to a point miles in advance of what would, ordinarily, have been the danger point.
“I am a conservative in business, but I knew then that we were gambling on a rising market and that we would be safe while the war lasted. Even during the year and a half I was in the navy and your uncle had a free hand in the direction of our business, I did not worry. Those were the days when all radicals made quick fortunes because they just could not go wrong on charters and the prices of commodities. Three months after the armistice had been signed I returned to civil life and since then I have been very busy getting our firm out from under the avalanche of deflation which must inevitably follow this war, even as it followed the Civil War. It has not been an easy task, Maisie, for your uncle has developed a spirit of arrogance and stubbornness difficult to combat.”
“Yes,” Maisie agreed, “Uncle John has acquired a very good opinion of himself as a business man.”
Pritchard nodded. “Those days when I was in the service and he operated alone have spoiled him. However, only this morning I succeeded in gaining his consent—in writing—to the sale, at a nice profit, of the last of our long-term charters at war rates. Now, if I can hold him in line until the deflation process commences, I shall be well pleased with myself.”