"God bless him! Being of sound and disposing mind this day, I will take the will for the deed." He sat for a moment in thought; then holding the paper before him, he said, musingly: "Few, very, very few are those in this world so broadly eddicayted as to have dictayted this."
"There are few of the blood royal," I ventured to remark.
"And more's the pity," he said, as the lock of his lacquered dispatch-box clicked. For a time we were silent.
"It just occurs to me," I said at last, "that we forgot to have him sign a receipt."
"Receipt, man!" he exclaimed. "A receipt from him? Besides, we have Bridget Ann as a witness." And chuckling, he passed again into the company's offices.
Not until the very hour of the day of the meeting did we realize that we had entirely forgotten to instruct O'Connor to have such proxies as he might get made out in Mr. Cutting's name.
The morrow came, and with it the meeting. The stockholders were not present in large numbers, but enough were there to crowd uncomfortably the directors' room where the meeting was held. O'Connor had not put in an appearance, nor had we heard from him since his and his wife's hurried departure of the day before. Our side was not a very hopeful party. True, Emley had cabled his attorney to give Mr. Cutting a proxy, and it was now safe in Mr. Cutting's possession, with the others he had obtained. But we were sure of only twenty-two thousand out of a total of fifty thousand shares, and to our knowledge (now, alas! at the last moment) the other side had been working like beavers to obtain proxies. Still, there was a chance for us. It is as misleading to count your proxies before they are voted, as to count your chickens before they are hatched. Some of the enemy's might be revoked at any moment, or be superseded by others bearing later dates. At any rate, preparation was passed. The fight was on.
Mr. Cutting was seated at the side of the room, surrounded by a little group of his fellow-directors and friends. I was beside the president, the necessary books and papers at my hand, ready to perform my duties as secretary. It was a position I held through Mr. Cutting's kindness and influence. At last the president called the meeting to order.
The reading of the minutes of the previous meeting was dispensed with, for which I was grateful. Something in the air told me that the enemy were eager for action. As many formalities as could be were omitted or summarily disposed of. The instant the treasurer's report had been read and accepted, Mr. Walker, the ex-president, was on his feet.
Then followed a very able, if wholly misleading, attack upon the policy pursued by the board of directors during their term of office. Mr. Walker was a man of force and a good speaker; and his remarks had their effect upon not a few uncertain ones, if one could judge by the look of approval apparent on the faces of many who were present. But as he neared the end, either his personal enmity toward Mr. Cutting or the excitement due to the occasion, got the better of his judgment. He closed by a personal attack upon the counsel, whom he characterized as "the non-commissioned general who had cunningly devised this whole campaign of extravagance, wickedly designed to elate and bamboozle the smaller stockholders, who, when the inevitable result of such reckless expenditure should come—namely, a crash—would find themselves obliged to sell their little hard-earned holdings." "To whom," Mr. Walker ended, "it is hardly necessary for me to say."