For unluckily Acherley, who had been charged to approach him about the Railroad, had been snubbed in the course of the day. Always an ill-humored man, he saw his way to pay the Squire out, and chose this moment to broach the delicate subject. He did it with as little tact as temper. “’Pon my honor, Griffin, you know—about this Railroad,” he said, tackling the old man abruptly, as they were putting on their coats. “You really must open your eyes, man, and move with the times. The devil’s in it if we can stand still always. You might as well go back to your old tie-wig, you know. You are blocking the way, and if you won’t think of your own interests, you ought to think of the town. I can tell you,” bluntly, “you are making yourself d—d unpopular there.” Very seldom of late had anyone spoken to the Squire in that tone, and his temper was up in a minute. “Unpopular? I don’t understand you,” he snapped. “Well, you ought to!” “Unpopular? What’s that? Unpopular, sir! What the devil have we in this room to do with popularity? I make my horse go my way, I don’t go his, nor ask if he likes it. Damn your popularity!” Acherley had his answer on his tongue, but Woosenham interposed. “But, after all, Griffin,” he said mildly, “we must move with the times—even if we don’t give way to the crowd. There’s no man whose opinion I value more than yours, as you know, but I think you do us an injustice.” “An injustice?” the Squire sneered. “Not I! The fact is, Woosenham, you are letting others use you for a stalking horse. Some are fools, and some—I leave you to put a name to them! If you’d give two thoughts to this Railroad yourself, you’d see that you have nothing to gain by it, except money that you can do without! While you stand to lose more than money, and that’s your good name!” Sir Charles changed color. “My good name?” he said, bristling feebly. “I don’t understand you, Griffin.” One of the others, seeing a quarrel in prospect, intervened. “There, there,” he said, hoping to pour oil on the troubled waters. “Griffin doesn’t mean it, Woosenham. He doesn’t mean——” “But I do mean it,” the old man insisted. “I mean every word of it.” He felt that the general sense was against him, but that was nothing to him. Wasn’t he the oldest present, and wasn’t it his duty to stop this folly if he could? “I tell you plainly, Woosenham,” he continued, “it isn’t only your affair, if you lend your name to this business. You take it up, and a lot of fools who know nothing about it, who know less, by G—d, than you do, will take it up too! And will put their money in it and go daundering up and down quoting you as if you were Solomon! And that tickles you! But what will they say of you if the affair turns out to be a swindle—another South Sea Bubble, by G—d! And half the town and half the country are ruined by it! What’ll they say of you then—and of us?”