"There is at least one person among those to whom this is addressed who knows that in beginning our operations in Lattimore it was understood that we should so manage affairs as to promote and take advantage of a bulge in values, and then pull out with a profit. Just what may be his policy when this reaches him I cannot, after my experience with his ability as a lightning change artist, venture to predict; but my last information leads me to believe that he is championing the utopian plan of running the business, not only past the bulge, but into the slump. I, for one, will not permit my fortune to be jeopardized by so palpable a piece of perfidy. "I may be allowed to add that I am prepared to take such measures as may seem to my legal advisers best to protect my interests. I am assured that the funds of one corporation will not be permitted by the courts to be donated to the bolstering up of another, over the protest of a minority stockholder. You may confidently assume that this advice will be tested to the utmost before the acts now threatened are permitted to be actually done. "I attach hereto a schedule of our holdings, with the amount of my interest in each, and the price I will take. I trust that I may have an answer to this at your earliest convenience. I beg to add that any great delay in answering will be taken by me as a refusal on your part to do anything, and I shall act accordingly. "Very respectfully, "J. Bedford Cornish." "Huh!" ejaculated Harper, "would he do it, d'ye think?" "He's a very resolute man," said Hinckley. "He calculates," said Jim, "that if he begins operations, he can have receiverships and things of that kind in his interest, and in that way swipe the salvage. On the other hand, he must know that his loss would be proportioned to ours, and would be great. He's sore, and that counts for something. I figure that the chances are seven out of ten that he'll do it--and that's too strong a game for us to go up against." "What would be the worst that could happen if he began proceedings?" said I. "The worst," answered Jim laconically. "I don't say, you know," he went on after a pause, "that Cornish hasn't some reason for his position. From a cur's standpoint he's entirely right. We didn't anticipate the big way in which things have worked out here, nor how deep our roots would strike; and we did intend to cash in when the wave came. And a cur can't understand our position in the light of these developments. He can't see that in view of the number of people sucked down with her when a great ship like ours sinks, nobody but a murderer would needlessly see her wrecked. What he proposes is to scuttle her. Sell to him! I'd as soon sell Vassar College to Brigham Young!" This tragic humorousness had the double effect of showing us the dilemma, and taking the edge off the horror of it.