“So this is the way you’ve been working?” says he. “We hire you to do a job, and you go out and create a situation like this. You stoop to trickery and meanness, and let a whole community get the idea that you have our support and countenance in such ways. I have suspected it. I’ve suspected it in other cases—but I shall never have to worry about you again. You are through with us, Mr. Wiggamore. The Middle-West Power Company employs decent men only. I’m ashamed to have been associated with you. I’m ashamed of what people must think of me, of what you have made people think of me.... It doesn’t pay, Mr. Wiggamore. Here you have been tricky and crooked, and you have been beaten, and beaten badly by a boy. He has _done_ you. Besides being a trickster and a disgrace to decent business, you are incompetent. Your connection with this company is severed from this instant. Good day, sir.” “He means you’re fired, Wiggamore,” said the fat man, “and with the approval of the whole board. Now get. You’re lucky to get off as easy as you are. If I had my way—” But Wiggamore was gone. He turned and almost ran out of the room, and that was the last we ever saw of him. CHAPTER XX Well, you could have knocked me down with a straw. I wouldn’t have believed it, and I wouldn’t have believed it if somebody had told me those big business men would all get up and come over and shake hands with us four boys and say such things to us as they did. I was doggone embarrassed, but not Mark. He _liked_ it. Not that he was ever swell-headed, but he did love to be praised, and this time he was getting a whole armful of it. Pretty soon they all settled down again, and President James says, “Now what terms can we make with you? You’ve got us down. What does it cost us?” “We just want what is f-f-fair,” says Mark. “Um!... Let’s see. Now suppose that you let us talk it over while you step into the next room. We’ll call you back in a few minutes and make an offer to you. How’s that?” “Fine, sir,” says Mark, and out we went. We sat around there for twenty minutes, and then President James opened the door and asked us to come in again. “We’ve talked it over,” said he, “and have decided to make you this offer. If you will transfer to us your dam and the site of your mill, and the Piggins land you hold under option, we will, in return, build you a new mill below the dam, remove and set up your machinery, reimburse you for loss of profits during the time the changes are being made, and give you three thousand dollars in cash. How is that?” “It’s all right,” said Mark, “except that we wouldn’t have any p-p-power to run the mill.”