Laura seemed on the point of flying at him:
“Seventy-five thousand! What a pretty business. We can understand you wanted to keep it to yourself!”
Stellan looked as if he had bitten into a very sour apple. He was apparently exercising his art of formulating things:
“It will be our common duty to take care of Tord when he has finally ruined himself,” he said. “Thus it is only reasonable that his shares should be distributed equally among us.”
“Never!” said Peter, “never! never!!”
But Stellan was cold as the grave:
“In that case you cannot count on being re-elected. There is only one way in which to regain our confidence.”
“Yes, you will be instantly kicked out if you don’t share alike,” assured Laura. “We will make Stellan director instead.”
Peter growled, beat about, threatened, whined, but in the end he had to say good-bye to his fine little stroke of family business:
“But it went off all right for three years,” he mumbled with a melancholy grin. “Twenty-five shares per head at seven hundred and fifty each. It is little short of a godsend.”