If John Steele expected a start of guilty surprise or a flash of anger or a demand for explanation, he was disappointed. The impassive face remained impassive. The piercing eyes narrowed a little, perhaps, but he could have sworn that the faint glimmer of a smile hovered about the firm lips. The voice that spoke was under perfect control.
“They say that all things come to him who waits, and here is an illustration of it. The man for whom every reporter in Chicago is searching, and whom I am most desirous to meet, walks right into my office. How many million bushels of wheat did you buy to-day, Mr. Steele?”
John Steele was a much more genial person than this man from New York. He threw back his head and laughed.
“Mr. Nicholson, I am delighted to have made your acquaintance. Your wild guess that I am the buyer of wheat is really flattering to me. Yet your own reference to my little contest with Rockervelt should have reminded you that I deal in railways, and not in grain.”
“The reason I wished to meet you,” went on Mr. Nicholson, as if the other had not spoken, “is because I have a message to you from my chiefs.”
“Yes, but you have not mentioned who your chiefs are.”
“There is no need to mention them, Mr. Steele. When I tell you they own banks in every city in the United States; that the income of the head of our combination is fifty million dollars a year from merely one branch of his activity; that we have employees in the United States Treasury powerful enough to cause the funds of this country to be placed for safety in our banks; that my principals can, if they wish, gamble with the savings of the people of the United States deposited in their keeping; that they have agents in every part of the world, and that there is not a country in Europe, Asia, or Africa which does not pay tribute to them; when I have said all this, Mr. Steele, I think two things may be taken for granted—first: no names need be mentioned; second: you are opposed to a power infinitely greater than that of Mr. Rockervelt or any other financial force which the world contains.”
“You are right in both surmises, Mr. Nicholson, and I experience that keen joy which warriors feel with foemen worthy of their steel—if you will excuse the apparent pun on my own name. I am really quoting from Scott, not the railway man of that name, but the poet. And now for your message, Mr. Nicholson.”
“You admit, then, that you are the buyer?”
“I’ll admit anything in the face of such a formidable rival.”