human
That is scarcely a fair question--even between armed neutrals, he objected.
gpt
Why do you want to know?
human
I'm asking because you have just proposed the non-interference policy, and I'd like to know how fairly you mean to live up to it. A little while back you interfered in a small business matter of mine very pointedly. What became of the one hundred thousand dollars you gave old David Massingale?
gpt
How do you know I gave him a hundred thousand dollars?
human
That's dead easy, laughed the man in the pivot chair, once more the genial buccaneer.
gpt
You drew a check for that amount and cashed it, and a few minutes later Massingale, whose account had been drawn down to nothing, bobs up at Schermerhorn's window with exactly the same amount in loose cash. What did he do with it--gamble it?
human
That is his own affair,
gpt
Well, the future--next month's future--is my affair. If you've got money enough to interfere again--don't. You'll lose it, the same as you did before. And perhaps I sha'n't take the second interference as good-naturedly as I did the first.
human
Is that all you have to say?
gpt
Not quite. I don't believe you were altogether in earnest a minute ago when you expressed your desire to call it all off. You don't want the Mirapolis well to go dry right now, not one bit more than I do.
human
I have been trying pretty hard to make you understand that it is a matter of utter indifference to me.
gpt
But you haven't succeeded very well; it isn't at all a matter of indifference to you, the magnate insisted persuasively.
human
As things are shaping themselves up at the present speaking, you stand to lose, not only the hundred thousand you squandered on old David, but all you've made besides. I keep in touch--it's my business to keep in touch. You've been buying bargains and you are holding them--for the simple reason that with the present slowing-down tendency in the saddle you can't sell and make any money.
gpt
Well?
human
I've got a proposition to make that ought to look good to you. What we need just now in this town is a little more activity--something doing. You can relieve the situation if you feel like it.
gpt
How?
human
If I tell you, you mustn't go and use it against me. That would be a low-down welcher's trick. But you won't. See here, your bureau at Washington is pretty well scared up over the prospect here. It is known in the capital that when Congress convenes there is going to be a dead-open-and-shut fight to kill this Buckskin reclamation project. Very well; the way for you fellows to win out is to hurry--finish your dam and finish it quick, before Congress or anybody else can get action.
gpt
Go on,
human
What I was going to suggest is this: you prod your people at Washington with a hot wire; tell 'em now's the time to strike and strike hard. They'll see the point, and if you ask for an increase of a thousand men you'll get it. Make it two thousand, just for the dramatic effect. We'll work right along with you and make things hum again. We'll start up the cement plant, and I don't know but what we might give the Buckskin M. & M. folks a small hypodermic that would keep 'em alive while we are taking a few snapshot pictures of Mirapolis on the jump again.
gpt
Let me get it straight, said Brouillard, putting his back against the door.
human
You fully believe you've got us down; that eventually, and before the water is turned on, Congress will pass a bill killing the Niquoia project. But in the meantime, to make things lively, you'd like to have the Reclamation Service go ahead and spend another million or so in wages that can be turned loose in Mirapolis. Is that it?
gpt
You've surrounded it very neatly, laughed the promoter.
human
Once, some little time ago, I might have felt the necessity of convincing your scruples, but you've cut away all that foolishness. It's a little tough on our good old Uncle Samuel, I'll admit, but it'll be only a pin-prick or so in comparison to the money that is thrown away every time Congress passes an appropriation bill. And, putting it upon the dead practical basis, Brouillard, it's your one and only salvation--personally, I mean. You've _got_ to unload or go broke, and you can't unload on a falling market. You think about it and then get quick action with the wire. There is no time to lose.