CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When the Hardys had gone Conward turned to Elden. "We had better try and find out where we stand," he said, trying to speak dispassionately, but there was a tremor in his voice.
"I agree," returned Elden, who had no desire to evade the issue. "Do you consider it fair to select inexperienced women for your victims?"
Conward made a deprecating gesture. "There is nothing to be gained by quarreling, Dave," he said. "Let us face the situation fairly. Let us get at the facts. When we have agreed as to facts, then we may agree as to procedure."
"Shoot," said Dave. He stood with his shoulder toward Conward, watching the dusk settling about the foothill city. The streets led away into the gathering darkness, and the square brick blocks stood in blue silhouette against a champagne sky. He became conscious of a strange yearning for this young metropolis; a sort of parental brooding over a boisterous, lovable, wayward youth. It was his city; no one could claim it more than he. And it was a good city to look upon, and to mingle in, and to dream about.
"I think," said Conward, "we can agree that the boom is over. Booms feed upon themselves, and eventually they eat themselves up. We have done well, on paper. The thing now is to convert our paper into cash."
Dave turned about. "You know I don't claim to be any great moralist, Conward," he said, "and I have no pity for a gambler who deliberately sits in and gets stung. Consequently I am not troubled with any self-pity, nor any pity for you. And if you can get rid of our holdings to other gamblers I have nothing to say. But if it is to be loaded on to women who are investing the little savings of their lives—women like Bert Morrison and Mrs. Hardy—then I am going to have a good deal to say. And there is that man—what's his name?—Merton, I think; a lunger if there ever was one; tuberculosis written all over him; a widower, too, with a little boy, sent out here as his last chance—you loaded him with stuff where he can't see the smoke of the city, and you call it city property. That's what I want to talk about," said Dave, with rising heat. "If business has to be done that way, then I say, to hell with business!"
"I asked you not to quarrel," Conward returned, with remarkable composure. "I suggested that we get at the facts. That seems to be a business suggestion. I think we are agreed that the boom is over. Values are on the down grade. The boomsters are departing. They are moving on to new fields, as we should have done a year or two ago, but I confess I had a sort of sentiment for this place. Well—that is the price of sentiment. It won't mix with business. Now, granting that the boom is over, where do we stand?
"We are rated as millionaires, but we haven't a thousand dollars in the bank at this moment. This," he lifted Mrs. Hardy's cheque, "would have seen us over next pay day, but you say the firm must have nothing to do with it. And which is the more immoral—since you have spoken of morality—to accept labour from clerks whom you can't pay, or to sell property to women who say they want it and are satisfied with the price? We make our income by selling property. As soon as the sales stop, the income stops. Well, the sales have stopped. But the expense goes on. We have literally thousands of unsettled contracts. We must keep our staff together. We have debts to pay, and we owe it to our creditors to make collections so that we can pay those debts, and we can't make collections without staff. I sympathize with your feelings on this matter, Dave, but what's a man to do? It's like war; we must kill or be killed. Business is war, of a kind. Why, on the property we are now holding the taxes alone will amount to twenty thousand dollars a year. And I put it up to you; if we are going to stand on sentiment, who's going to pay the taxes?"