They went silent now, and grouped a little closer about the tabouret which stood between them. The old man's voice went on evenly, with no excitement. Their conversation attracted the attention of none in the wide lounging room, where large affairs more than once had been discussed--even the making of Senators to order. "I'll tell you what happens," the old man resumed. "He quits using us for a stalking horse, and he comes down to his own system. He's spread out. Banks are all polite, but--well, he has to put up collateral; and then some more. If he doesn't want to put up International, he's apt to find that a bunch of automobiles is poor property when sold at twenty per cent. their cost. He turns off two or three butlers, but still that doesn't serve for margins. The market doesn't suit his book any more. "He's discovering now the great truth of something any old friend Emory Storrs used to say--Emory always was in debt, or wanted to be, and says he: 'There's no trouble about prosperity in this country; there's plenty of money--the only trouble is in the confounded scarcity in _collateral_.' Well, he goes over to this young man, who is standing out for some reason best known to himself, and he tries to get him to come through, and he doesn't come through. What's left? Why, the diamond lightnings of the Lady of the Lightnings--and his International Power stock. "Meantime, all this thing can't be kept entirely secret; that is to say, the market part of it can't be. But we sit tight, all of us. We hold our regular directors' meetings of the International board, and we smile, and look pleasant. We don't know a thing about his hot water experiences in the open market. He explains to us why this and that happens, or doesn't happen, in International; and we smile and look pleasant, and we don't know a thing. After a time it's up to him and the Lady of the Lightnings. Something pops! He's up against it, all except his International Power. Then Van, and you, Standley, and you, Ack, and you, and you and I, and all of us--why we're still pleasant as pie to him and we say, 'Well, Mr. John Rawn, if you'd only sell us two or three shares of International, we'd pay you twenty times what it's worth--but it's very much cheaper now--by reason of Van's competing company!' "That's about all, I think!" The others nodded silently. The game was not new to them, and even in its most complicated features might have been called simple, with resources such as theirs. If these resources had made Rawn, they could unmake him. It was all in the day's work for them.