“I did not disbelieve your word,” protested Blair, timorously.
“I understood you to do so. If you did not, then your action was at once cruel and tyrannical. However, that is past and done with, so we will say no more about it, unless you choose that it should come up later on. Now, I may inform you that my late uncle has left me a legacy that approximates three hundred thousand dollars. As the interest on this, even at one per cent, is more than I receive as division superintendent of the Midland, you will easily understand that I do not retain my position merely from mercenary motives. I am to-day in a position of independence which makes the outcome of any struggle we may engage in a matter of perfect indifference to me.”
“I am happy,” said Blair, again mopping his brow, “to be the first of your old colleagues to congratulate you on your improved prospects. John Jacob Astor once said that a poor man with a hundred thousand dollars might make a fortune in this country. Although times have changed since then, still, a poor man with three times that amount has numerous opportunities denied to more poverty-stricken individuals. As for the struggle you speak of, I really see nothing on earth that either of us would gain by engaging in it.”
“I am quite at one with you there, sir, and indeed you will find me the least belligerent of individuals if I but get my own way, which I intend to insist on hereafter, so far as my immediate department is concerned. While I have no fear of the struggle I suggested, neither have I any desire to engage in it. You see, Mr. Blair, you would be too severely handicapped from the start to give you a chance. Your task would be to show that Mr. Rockervelt is a fool, while all I should need to do would be to prove that he is the wisest of men. You are too shrewd a judge of human nature to doubt the outcome of such a contest. Mr. Rockervelt prides himself on two things. First, the unerringness of his judgment regarding men; second, the excellence of his various roads, and he reaches the second by means of the first. Now, he placed me in this chair. If he had wished you to choose the occupant, he would have delegated that duty to you. If he had desired the estimable Mr. Johnson here, he would not have had the slightest hesitation in enlisting Mr. Johnson’s co-operation. Now, if you stood to gain anything by forcing a hopeless issue I could comprehend your attitude, but anything you wish you can have through good will, so where is the use of coercion or of a fight?”
“I assure you, my dear Mr. Steele, that I have no desire whatever to bring on a fight. I have said so all along.”
“Very well, Mr. Blair, there’s no more to be said, and I predict you will find me the most deferential, accommodating subordinate that ever worked in your office.”
“But where do I come in?” ejaculated the panic-stricken Johnson, whose face had become paler and paler as this colloquy went on.
“My dear sir, you don’t come in,” said John Steele urbanely. “I told you that at the beginning, when I counselled you not to enter a contest where you were bound to be the loser. I commend to you in future the sensible attitude assumed by Mr. Blair.”
“Mr. Blair,” persisted Johnson, “you appointed me division superintendent, and assured me you would stand by that appointment.”
“Oh, well,” explained Blair, “you see how it is yourself. I did so under an entire misapprehension. I thought that Mr. Steele had openly defied my authority, which I now understand was not the case. Am I right in that, Mr. Steele?”