The secretary read from his notes.
"Now," said the business man, "get Mr. Rivington and Mr. Hallett on your own 'phone and ask them if they can find it convenient to come around here to see me for a half-hour. Tell me what they say, and then give me Atwood and the other brokers in the regular order."
"Yes, sir."
"And, Rollins——"
"Yes, sir?"
"When Mr. Hallett and Mr. Rivington arrive, we are not to be disturbed."
The secretary went; the brokers were given their orders, and then came L. Bergen Rivington and George J. Hallett, the two men with whom this third man was now consulting.
"About the Manhattan and Niagara——" began Rivington. He had a way of moving his hands nervously when he spoke, and he rarely completed a sentence.
Hallett, who was the man in a white waistcoat, stopped chewing his cigar to ask:
"What are they kickin' about? We own seventy-five per cent. of the preferred and sixty of the common."