"What can have come to old Podevin?" said Webb. "If he waits for the train at 9.30 he may miss the meeting altogether, and his fee. He will have been watching to see the president go by before starting himself for the station, and the president stayed in Montreal last night. I happen to know that. Podevin will miss his train."
"So much the better for us. There will be the more for you and me. I'd love to finger a dollar that should have been coming to Podevin more'n fifty of my own. He's that near, it's like drawing teeth to get a sou out of him. He hain't paid me yet for the cord-wood that kept him warm last winter, and now he wants me to take out the price in white Yankee beans. 'No, sir,' says I; but I let him show me the truck, and, squire, if you'll believe me, the weevils were that thick, you could see them quarrelling together who was to get the next sound bean, and they were that big you could see them looking out of their holes at the buyer, and warning him like, against the trade."
The brother directors, however, were mistaken in supposing Podevin was minded to forego or endanger the emoluments of his directorship. He was in waiting, though they did not see him, behind a convenient cattle-car on the siding, anxious only to avoid speech with them till all were in presence of the president, that his own misgivings might be resolved without prejudice; for he dreaded that his confrères might elicit something from him before he had learned the right way to view or state it himself, and so his undigested words might get abroad and do him harm. Wherefore he waited till he saw the couple step on the train, and then clambered quietly into the carriage behind, avoiding the platform and the ticket office, and paying his fare to the conductor on the train, who charged him ten cents extra, wringing his heart with the thought that two per cent of his director's fee was thereby lost to himself and his heirs for ever.
The board of directors of the Mining Association of St. Euphrase assembled at the appointed place and time. The president was in the chair, and Jordan, the company's solicitor, sat by his side. Podevin sat beside Stinson, whispering anxiously, and striving to draw support and encouragement from the involuntary exclamations of the man he was alarming with his tales and forebodings, while Belmore and Webb awaited the opening of the proceedings in the placid tranquillity of perfect ignorance. Nothing disturbing had as yet come into their knowledge, or even their dreams, and they sat by the leather-covered table contemplating the minute book and the inkstand, and wondering how long it would be before they should sign their names, draw their fee, and take their departure.
The president tapped the table with his ruler. Stinson read the minutes of the previous meeting, and the board was in session and ready to proceed to business. The president stated that he had been made the recipient of singular information affecting the value and prospects of their property only the day before, and he had lost no time in calling them together, that the matter might be inquired into. "And our worthy solicitor, Mr. Jordan, will now kindly repeat to the board the statements he has already made to me in private."
"I know nothing, gentlemen," said Jordan, "but what was mentioned to me by one of your own number, here present. He is now, I doubt not, ready to repeat his statements at length for your united consideration. I allude to my respected friend, Mr. Podevin."
The Père Podevin coughed behind his hand, looking disgust from under his eyelids for a solicitor who could thus betray a confidential conversation. "Was the man a fool or a rogue?" he asked himself. If he had not actually paid him a fee on addressing him, had he not given information worth thousands, if properly used?--given it freely for the sake of consulting him--and Jordan had promised advice in the morning--the morning now come--and here, instead of a friendly hint how he might save himself, the treacherous adviser, having already had twenty-four hours' exclusive use of the news, was calling on him to divulge everything before the whole board, giving an equal start to the others with himself in the race to save something, or rather letting himself be ruined with the rest. However, all eyes were on him now, and there was no escape.
"It was on yesterday," he said, "zat I hear of ze men to say, ver secrètement to ze ozers, as they have dig out all ze cuivre of ze mine. I £five zose men to drink in retirement from ze rest, and I ask, and zey confirm zat of ze cuivre is no more. Mon Dieu! Misterre Herkimair--to tink of ze moneys to nourish my vieillesse, and ze dots of my daughtairs innocentes! All sunk in ze mines----"
"Well?" asked Ralph a little testily; "and pray who did it? Who sunk your money? You are of lawful age, Mr. Podevin, and believed to be of sound mind. You are privileged to act for yourself, and you must bear the consequences of your own acts. If your shares had risen to double the price you paid for them, you would have taken the profit as the reward of your own smartness; if it turns out the other way, why should you come grumbling to me? I did not make you risk your money or throw it away."
"You say, Misterre Herkimair, zere were fortunes in ze rocks of La Hache svamp, and I believe ze riche Misterre Herkimair, and I give ze little bourse made up sou by sou in all zese year vit so much of care----"