The Landloper Part 22

The doctor had not lost all faith in his own fearlessness and rect.i.tude of motive, but he was obliged to acknowledge to himself that just then he was a rather weak champion.

"However, I'd like to lay eyes on the sort of man who can unjoint this devilish combination of politics and law and finance," he informed himself, trying to justify his own retreat.

His eyes, in pa.s.sing, swept a stranger.

The stranger was a tall young man with wavy hair and brown eyes. He sat patiently, nursing a broad-brimmed black hat on his knees.

"I'd like to see that man!" repeated Dr. Dohl, mentally, sugar-coating his disgust at his own weakness.

If mortal man were gifted with prescience Dr. Dohl would have stared out of countenance the tall young man who sat on a bench in the outer office of the state's overlord and nursed a broad-brimmed hat upon his knees.

XIII

THE CODE AND THE GAGE OF BATTLE

"I appreciate zeal in public affairs," mused Colonel Dodd, gazing at the door which Dr. Dohl had closed behind him. "But once there was a retriever dog who chased his master with a stick of dynamite that had a sputtering fuse."

He set his broad hands upon the arms of his chair, derricked himself up, and went over to the mirror. He peered at himself and seemed to rearrange his countenance, much as a woman would smooth the ruffled plumage of her hat.

"We're not murderers," he informed the composed visage which the mirror held forth to him. "But we haven't got to the point where we're letting lunatics who break up city government meetings, or crank doctors, tell us how to spend a million or two of the money we've worked hard to acc.u.mulate. There's getting to be too much of this telling business men in this country how to run their business. If we're peddling typhoid fever in spite of what our a.n.a.lyses tell us, then we'll go ahead, of course, and clean up." Colonel Dodd was willing to acknowledge that much to himself, surveying his countenance in the mirror. "But we'll continue to run our own business," he added.

Then he sat down again in his chair and pushed a b.u.t.ton. "Briggs," he directed, "send in those three men from Danburg."

He whirled his swivel-chair and sat there at his desk, his rectangular front squared to meet them.

The three men who came in were of the rural businessmen type, and their faces were not amiable. Two of them halted in the middle of the sumptuous apartment and the third stepped a couple of paces ahead of them. He carried a huge roll of engineers' plans under his arm.

"My name is Davis, as I suppose you know, Colonel Dodd," he reported.

"Have seats, gentlemen."

"We are tired of sitting," stated the spokesmen, with sour significance.

"I understand, Mr. David. But mornings are very busy times for me. I was attending to appointments made beforehand. You made no appointment, and I was not expecting you."

There was silence, and the three men glowered on him. It was evident that settled animosity emboldened these country merchants even in the presence of Colonel Symonds Dodd.

"I was not expecting you, I say."

The colonel's demeanor displayed a little uncertainty; he had rather expected suppliants. He knew what a nasty blow had been dealt these men the day before.

"Probably not," a.s.sented Davis. "You expected that after Stone & Adams yanked the gangplank out from under us yesterday we would put in at least one day tearing around to other banking firms, trying to place our bonds."

"Why--why--Well, if Stone & Adams--You naturally wouldn't take the verdict of one banking-house on a matter of bonds, would you?"

"Look here, Colonel Dodd, we understand you--clear way down to the ground--and we may as well save wear on our tongues. And first of all we have come right here to save shoe-leather. We have come straight to headquarters. Do you suppose we're going to gallop around this city to bankers after the word has gone out about us? Not much! We are here in the captain's office, and you can't fool us about that."

"I never heard such--" the colonel began to sputter.

"I know you never did--and it's getting your goat," a.s.serted the blunt countryman. "We've got a plain and pertinent question to put to you--do you intend to ram us to the wall in our water deal?"

The head of the state's water trust simulated anger perfectly, even if he didn't feel it. And there was astonishment in his anger.

"What have I to do with your dealings with bankers?" he demanded.

"Probably your plant isn't up to pitch."

"That talk doesn't go with us, not for a minute, Colonel Dodd," shouted the undaunted Davis. "You're talking to business men, not to children.

We offered to leave the matter of our plan to any three engineers in this state. Why is it that Stone & Adams refuse to take the word of anybody except your man, Snell?"

"They probably want the word of the best consulting-engineer in the state."

"But he's your man."

"He is our man because he is the best. We hire him for our work. But we do not control his opinions when he is consulted by others. Oh no! And I want to tell you, my men, that I refuse to listen to any more such talk from you."

"Then call in one of your political policemen and have us put out,"

invited the unterrified Davis.

"Build your plant right and your bonds will sell. Our bonds sell when Mr. Snell reports on our plants."

"We'll save our strength in the matter of building plants and running around trying to place bonds with brokers who have been tipped off by the money trust of this state. We propose to get it straight from you first. You can't fool us for one minute, I repeat! We'll have our last wiggle right here. Will you take your hands off our affairs?"

"I haven't put my hands _on_ your affairs," shouted Colonel Dodd, furious at being baited in this amazing manner. Never before had any visitor dared to raise his voice in that office. "You're crazy."

"You're right--we are--pretty nearly so. Myself and these two neighbors of mine have tied up every dollar we can rake and sc.r.a.pe to build a water-plant for our little village and give our folks clean water from a lake, not the rotten poison you would pump out of our millstream for us. We have tried to do this for our town and make an honest dollar for ourselves. Now you have got us lashed to the mast, financially, so you think, and you propose to step in and gobble our franchise. That's enough to make men crazy."

"Get out of my office!"

"You grabbed the franchise and common stock of Westham that way,"

declared Davis. "You scooped in Durham and Newry and a lot of others.

But I'm here to warn you, Colonel Dodd. Danburg is going to choke you if you try to swallow it. We are only countrymen, and we know it. You have always done all the bossing and threatening in this state up to now. But I tell you, Colonel Dodd, there comes a time when the rabbit will spit in the bulldog's eye. If we three go out of this room in the same spirit in which we came into it something will drop in this state. We shall have a story to tell."

Colonel Dodd swung his chair around and faced his desk.

"Gentlemen, let's not get excited," he appealed. Ostensibly he reached for a pencil. He also pushed a b.u.t.ton he had not touched before that day. Then he came around slowly on the swivel of his chair. "You have mentioned certain towns, Davis. Those towns have water systems that are a part of the Consolidated, to be sure. But the men who promoted those plants and were unable to complete them came to us and begged us to step in and take the burden off their hands." While Colonel Dodd talked he kept glancing, but in an extremely un.o.btrusive manner, at a huge and magnificent j.a.panese screen that occupied one corner of his office.

"It is easy enough to start ventures in this world, Mr. Davis. An inexperienced man can do that. But it most often takes experience and a lot of money to install a successful water plant."

"We want to get down to cases, Colonel Dodd," insisted the spokesman.

"We haven't come here without posting ourselves. We know how you have talked to the others. But you can't bluff us. You propose to steal our plant, such of it as we have been able to build to date. One word from you to the money gang takes the hoodoo off us. Now talk business! Do you propose to pot us like you have the rest?"

The heart of the big rose in the center of the screen flashed once with a glow that was imperceptible unless one had been gazing at it, watching for a signal. Colonel Dodd understood that Miss Kate Kilgour had entered through a low door and was behind the screen, ready with note-book and pencil. He leaned back in his deep chair and interlocked his pudgy fingers across his paunch.

"I a.s.sure you I have not the least interest in your projects as to the Danburg water system, Mr. Davis, Mr. Erskine, Mr. Owen." He dwelt on the names. "The Consolidated has plenty of its own business to attend to."

"But I say you are trying to run _our_ business, too--no, ruin it!"