"The only question now is: what can we do?" Smith continued.
"Schroeder has been dead six years. And I don't know the present managing director at all; I've never even seen this man that signed the letter."
"It would have done us no good if you had known him," said the younger man, slowly. "This is a cut and dried affair. All we can do now is to look for another treaty. We must try to get a contract as good as the one we have with the Karlsruhe."
"I'm afraid we can never do it," the President responded.
"Perhaps not—and again, perhaps we can. Still, I admit it won't be easy." He fell thoughtfully silent.
"Cuyler tells me he's lost another broker—Spencer and Carrick have begun to drop their expirations with us," remarked Mr. Wintermuth, with an irrelevance that was more apparent than real.
"Does he think the Salamander's getting them?" Smith inquired, his eyes narrowing.
The older man nodded.
The other rose from his chair.
"I think," he said deliberately, "that I will go and see Mr. F. Mills O'Connor. I will give him just one chance to let up in this campaign of his and restrict his energies to ordinary business competition; and then, if he refuses, I will ask you and the other directors of the Guardian to let me open things up and fight him on his own ground, if it costs us every dollar of prospective profit for the next three years."