Mr. Osgood reached toward the button that summoned his stenographer, and then drew back his hand.
"No," he said slowly. "What's the use? If it's decided, I can't stop it. And I fancy the best of my fighting days are over. That's for the younger men to do. I'll talk to Cole about it, and see what he thinks we'd better do."
The journalist glanced at him somewhat skeptically.
"Well, you needn't fight, yourself—let the Guardian people attend to that. And if you take my advice, you'll write Wintermuth. Good-by."
Mr. Osgood wrote, and on Monday morning his letter came to the hand of Mr. Wintermuth, whose eye brightened at the sight of his friend's signature. But there was no pleasure in his tone when a moment later he sent for Mr. Gunterson.
"Look here," he said, "I'm afraid these Eastern Conference people mean trouble. We've been assuming that the excepted cities were safe—nothing could happen there. Well, I don't believe they're as safe as we thought. Read what Osgood says about Boston. Boston! where we've got as fine a business as any company of our size in the field. Look at that!"
With a dignified reticence Mr. Gunterson took the letter, and in a rich silence he perused it. Then, with a calm smile, he gave his decision.
"Mr. Osgood's evident alarm may be well founded—perhaps not. But at all events, I believe our interests at Boston should be protected by some one of authority, and I shall go up myself on the five o'clock this afternoon."
On the five o'clock Mr. Gunterson left New York, and at a seasonable hour on Tuesday morning he started forth upon his travels from his Boston hotel. In search of a target at which he could aim, he went first to Mr. Osgood, to ask his aid in locating that target. Mr. Osgood, who had hoped that Mr. Wintermuth himself would come, felt a tremor of premonitory dismay at the sight of this deputy; and his subsequent talk with Mr. Gunterson did nothing to allay his apprehension. In fact, it was his covert reflection that if Hancher was right, it was all over; the man whom Wintermuth sent was of no assistance.
In point of truth, it was all over. It was barely possible that a strong and determined man could have effected something had he known how to set about it—but Mr. Gunterson did not know how. No hack actor suddenly confronted with a strange and difficult part felt more inept than he. He conceived that within him was the power to deliver a tremendous blow—but he could not find its mark. Aimlessly he consulted his acquaintances along Kilby Street. The agents of the influential Conference companies, primed to resist interviews, greeted him affably, congratulated him on his new connection, and blandly denied all knowledge of any radical move in process. That night Mr. Gunterson, having accomplished absolutely nothing, returned to his hotel with an uneasy feeling of dissatisfaction with the day.