"That goes without saying," Thatcher admitted; "they would be sore if we gave them the machines outright. But if you are so sure your improvements are valuable, why go to the expense of duplicating our selling and manufacturing equipment when we stand ready to make a fair trade?"
"The new machines wouldn't be worth as much to you as they are to us."
"Why not?"
"Because you would never use them. The improved models would simply be side-tracked to keep them from competing against your antiques. You would be paying whatever it cost to get hold of them for hush money, just as you have done a hundred times before."
"Suppose we did: what difference would it make to you, so long as you get a good thing out of it? I don't understand that your company was organized for philanthropic purposes."
"No; business and philanthropy usually work better when they're given allowances for separate maintenance, but in this particular case the two seem to be walking along hand in hand. Self-interest, Thatcher, is the strongest motive in the world, and when you find a proposition which offers self-interest to the buyer as well as to the seller you have an irresistible argument."
"This is a great road-bed for a trolley-line," Thatcher remarked, leaning over the side of the carriage. "The construction problem ought to be a simple one."
"The proposition to have a line of cars run here is so obvious that there must have been powerful objections to obstruct it all these years," Cosden answered, quite content to await Thatcher's pleasure in resuming the main topic of their conversation.
It was a beautiful clear, cool morning, and the sea at their left sparkled brilliantly in its sapphire splendor. To the right of the carriage road were attractive cottages, overgrown with blooming bougainvillea or other less spectacular foliage. Every now and then a more pretentious mansion appeared, built on some elevation which commanded a view of the water on either side, and surrounded by heavy clumps of cedar and fan-leaved palmettos. Frequently the road passed between high walls of solid coral limestone, from the crevices of which the ever-decorative Bermuda vegetation showed scarlet, orange and purple blooms against the green.
"There must be something more than sentiment," Thatcher commented. "I suspect that we shall uncover some large personal interests here which have been strong enough to protect themselves—"