“Mattison will have to come to us, then. We will ask for a million of their stock to cease hostilities. Technically, of course, he will be buying out our company. A million for our four junk factories which have never manufactured anything, and the good will of our business—it is to laugh! This, together with what you’ve bought on the market, will give you a controlling interest in the trust, and you will then be elected director and vice-president and the stock will jump twenty-five . . . forty points! Gee! what a killing!” Gillett turned to Dodge. “Look here,” he said, “you wanted instructions for Monday. Dump a block of five thousand shares on the market at the opening; and go on selling as long as you can find takers. I don’t set any limit.” Broad smiles surrounded the table. Only Joe looked indifferent. An uncomfortable thought occurred to Gillett. “I say,” he objected, rubbing his lip; “when it comes out that I have sold out to the Trust, and been elected a vice-president, it’ll put me in a rotten light with the public.” “Oh, it’ll all be forgotten in a week,” said Joe smoothly. “—By everybody except Mattison. We’ll give the public something else to think about if you like. . . . Look here, if you want to stand well with the public, I’ve got another scheme. . . .” His three hearers leaned toward him. “There’s been too many Trust Companies formed under the new banking law. Some of them are damned hard up for business. We’ll pick on one of them, and let it be quietly circulated around that it’s in a bad way, see? A bank is very sensitive to that sort of thing. We can pick up whatever stock comes into the market at a discount; and when our bank gets good and groggy—if there’s a run on it, so much the better; you can step forward and deposit a million in cash. Think of the publicity! They’d elect you president or anything else you were willing to take; and the stock would jump twenty-five points. You’d be hailed in the newspapers as the savior of the institution, and incidentally make a handsome profit, see? . . . It’s just as easy to work it one way as the other. . . .” Business having been disposed of, the talk around the table slipped into undress. Joe, watchfully keeping all four of his auditors in play, made the running. He had diverse elements to deal with; for while Gillett and Dodge were frankly high livers, old Judge Keep was the pillar of some church or another; Eddie Shriver an easy-going young husband and father. Different as they were, they all yielded to Joe’s insinuating looseness. Joe had a smiling way of taking the worst for granted that the most prudish of men found difficult to withstand. He worked to bring a certain sly, sheepish grin into the faces of his hearers; and when that appeared, he knew they were his.