“Not for me, my boy,” the Colonel assured him. “I had enough of that last night. We'll just consider the hand-shaking all attended to, if you please. Have a chair; sit down and tell me what I can do to make you happy.”
“I'm delighted to find you in such a generous frame of mind, Colonel. You can make me genuinely happy by renewing, for ten years on the same terms as the original contract, your arrangement to freight the logs of the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company from the woods to tidewater.”
Colonel Pennington cleared his throat with a propitiatory “Ahem-m-m!” Then he removed his gold spectacles and carefully wiped them with a silk handkerchief, as carefully replaced them upon his aristocratic nose, and then gazed curiously at Bryce.
“Upon my soul!” he breathed.
“I realized, of course, that this is reopening an issue which you have been pleased to regard as having been settled in the last letter my father had from you, and wherein you named terms that were absolutely prohibitive.”
“My dear young friend! My very dear young friend! I must protest at being asked to discuss this matter. Your father and I have been over it in detail; we failed to agree, and that settles it. As a matter of fact, I am not in position to handle your logs with my limited rolling-stock, and that old hauling contract which I took over when I bought the mills, timber-lands, and logging railroad from the late Mr. Henderson and incorporated into the Laguna Grande Lumber Company, has been an embarrassment I have longed to rid myself of. Under those circumstances you could scarcely expect me to saddle myself with it again, at your mere request and solely to oblige you.”
“I did not expect you to agree to my request. I am not quite that optimistic,” Bryce replied evenly.
“Then why did you ask me?”
“I thought that possibly, if I reopened negotiations, you might have a reasonable counter-proposition to suggest.”
“I haven't thought of any.”