Part 60

"If you have a million or so to spare, we'll send it up. There's more to be met than the payroll." The voice was a trifle insulting, but Stoughton did not notice it, and Birch went on. "There's just one thing we can do, if we can't get money to run."

"Well?" jerked out Riggs, "say it."

"Shut down."

Wimperley's long fingers were drumming the table. He did not fancy himself as the president of a great company in whose works not a wheel was turning.

"I'd like to find some other way out of it. There's going to be hell to pay here, but--"

"Perhaps the ingenious gentleman at St. Marys could help out," said Birch acidly.

At that came a little silence and there appeared the vision of Clark in his office, with his achievements dissolving before his eyes.

"Robert Fisher is no financier," struck in Stoughton wearily.

Wimperley smiled in spite of himself. "Perhaps not, but he mesmerized us into that office. There's only one thing I can see--issue debentures secured by first mortgage."

"Who'll take 'em? We used up all our arguments long ago. Philadelphia doesn't want a mortgage on Robert Fisher, and what about the Pennsylvania farmer?"

"What about him?" asked Wimperley pettishly.

"As I know him, he's a bad loser--he works too hard for it. This is a case of new money from outside, and I for one don't feel like doing any traveling."

"In other words we've demonstrated that whether or not by any fault of ours, we've made a mess of it," said Stoughton with utter candor.

"Something remarkably like it."

"And when Clark told us, months ago, that he wouldn't draw any salary, and that a lot of others were only drawing half salary to help out till the rail mill got going, we should have made provision for possible mistakes, and seen as well that we were getting in over our ears."

"But Clark believed all he told us," piped Riggs with a flash of loyalty.

"Of course he did, and he still does, and because he is still only twenty years ahead of his time he's all the more dangerous."

"Let's get back to this payroll," blurted Stoughton who was getting more and more uncomfortable.

"Fishing's pretty good up there, let him fish for it." The voice of Birch was like ice. He was one of those who by nature are fitted for cold and ruthless action in time of stress. Most of his money had been made across the dissecting table of enterprises, and not at their birth. He was a financial surgeon, but no midwife, and had only been magnetized into his past support by the hypnotic personality of Clark. He was grimly mindful that Marsham, after waiting for years for his opening, had got more than even. Birch's cold mind now wondered for the first time whether, after all, the cut throat game he had once loved to play was worth the candle. Here was American credit and effort massacred by American ruthlessness and revenge. Marsham had pounced upon a weak point in the Consolidated's armor and pierced deep into the body corporate. He had struck to kill.

"And would you shut down the pulp mill--market's good now?" persisted Stoughton.

"I'd rivet the whole thing tight. The railway never paid,--at least directly--that we could reckon. It's costing more to ship pulp on our own boats than the rate at which we could ship by contract--and if they are not going to bring back coke, why run them? Gentlemen, this means a smash--an interval of anxiety, discomfort, loss of prestige, and--"

"Go on, Elisha--" barked Riggs. "Oh, please go on!"

"Prestige--and later reconstruction. In the meantime, we don't spend a cent on running anything, and find out exactly what we owe. Then comes new money, and," he added cynically, "a new bunch of directors."

"And who will arrange that?" Riggs demanded abruptly.

"One Robert Fisher Clark--if he has not lost all his power of magnetism."

"Aren't you guessing a little too fast?"

"No, it's quite possible. His argument will be that we didn't back him to the necessary limit--that another million would have done it--and," concluded Birch reflectively, "that may be perfectly true. But God knows we did what we could. What's this one?" He glanced at Wimperley, who was reading a telegram just brought in.

Waiting your remittance for payroll, necessary that this be provided to-day, otherwise I anticipate serious disturbance here. It is advisable that I do not come to Philadelphia just yet as my leaving here would be wrongly interpreted.