"A half-million apiece."
"H'm!" Covington soliloquized. "It doesn't look quite so certain to you since Gorham began to get next to the other directors and the big stockholders, does it?"
"They've got to have the short lines, and whoever gets them must pay our price."
"Yes; but in one case it goes through without any public demonstration, and in the other it leaves a smudge on each one of the four which you would be glad to avoid."
"Exactly," assented Harris.
"Well," Covington said, deliberately, "I don't think you can pull it off. As a matter of fact, since you have been so confidential, I may say that Mr. Gorham is convinced that there's something crooked, and that is why he dropped the idea of having Brady and some of the others become stockholders. We have to maintain a high standard in the Consolidated Companies, as you can easily understand."
Harris looked at him sharply. "Perhaps the standard is higher among the stockholders than on the Board of Directors," he suggested.
"I don't quite understand you," was the cold reply.
"We want some one of the directors to steer this thing through for us,"
Harris said. "That's the real milk in the cocoanut."
Covington rose from his chair. "I think it is time to terminate our interview."