"Certainly," Simmons retorted; "we educated them, taught 'em thrift. While you are promoting idleness and loose-living.... But this is only an opening for what I wanted to say.--I had a letter last week from the Tennessee and Northern people, the Buffalo plan has matured, they're pushing the construction right along." "I intended to come to you about that." "Well?" "I ain't going on with our agreement." Simmons' face exhibited not a trace of concern. "I may say," he returned smoothly, "that I am not completely surprised. I have been looking for something of the kind. I must remind you that our partnership is a legal and binding instrument; you can't break it, nor throw aside your responsibility, with a few words. It will be an expensive business for you." "I'm willing to pay with what I've got." The other held up a palm in his familiar, arresting gesture. "Nothing of that magnitude; nothing out of the way; I only wanted to remind you that a compensation should follow your decision. It puts me in a very nice position indeed. I gather from your refusal to continue the partnership that you do not intend to execute singly the original plan; it is possible that you will not hold the options against the coming of transportation." "You've got her," Gordon declared; "I'm not going to profit seventy times over, tie up all that timber, from the ignorance of men that ought to rightly advantage from it. I--I--" Gordon rose to his feet in the harassing obscurity of his need; "I don't want to make! I don't want to take anything ... never again! I want--" "You forget, unfortunately, that I am forced to be accessory to your--your change of heart. I may say that I shall have to pay dearly for your--your eleventh hour conversion. Timber will be--unsteady." "Didn't you mention getting something out of it?" "A mere detail to my effort, my time. What my timber will be worth, with what you throw on the market hawking up and down ... problematic." Gordon Makimmon hesitated, a plan forming vaguely, painfully, in his mind. Finally, "I might buy you out," he suggested; "if you didn't ask too dam' much. Then I could do as I pleased with the whole lot." "Now that," Valentine Simmons admitted, dryly cordial, "is a plan worth consideration. We might agree on a price, a low price to an old partner. You met the Company's agents, heard the agreement outlined; a solid proposal. And, as you say, with the timber control in your own hands, you could arrange as you pleased with the people concerned." He grew silent, enveloped in thought. Then: "I'll take a hundred thousand for all the options I bought, for my interest in the partnership." "I don't know as I could manage that," Gordon admitted. An unassumed astonishment marked the other's countenance. "Why!" he ejaculated, "Pompey left an estate estimated at--" he stopped from sheer surprise.