human
It is a gambler's bet and a rather desperate one, he said slowly.
gpt
You stand to win all or to lose all in making it, Mr. Cortwright. The town is balancing on the knife-edge of a panic at this moment. Would it go up, or down, with a sudden resumption of work on the dam?
human
The careless thinker would say that it would yell 'Fire!' and go up into the air so far that it could never climb down, was the prompt reply.
gpt
But we'll have the medicine dropper handy. In the first place, everybody can afford to stay and boost while Uncle Sam is spending his million or so right here in the middle of things. Nobody will want to pull out and leave that cow unmilked. In the second place, we've got a mighty good antidote to use in any sure-enough case of hydrophobia your quick dam building may start.
human
You could let it leak out that, in spite of all the hurrah and rush on the dam, Congress is really going to interfere before we are ready to turn the water on,
gpt
Precisely. We could make that prop hold if you were actually putting the top course on your wall and making preparations to drop the stop-gate in your spillway.
human
I see, was the rejoinder, and it was made in the same half-absent monotone.
gpt
But while we are still on the knife-blade edge ... a little push.... Mr. Cortwright, if there were one solitary righteous man left in Mirapolis----
human
There isn't, chuckled the promoter, turning back to his desk while the engineer was groping for the door-knob--