Steve explained his plan to the men in the room. After all, he said, there was no occasion for any of them to get excited. He had taken them into the thing and he proposed to get them out. “I'm that kind of a man,” he said pompously. In a way, he declared, he was glad things had turned out as they had. The four men had little actual money invested. They had all tried honestly to do something for the town and he would see to it that everything came out all right. “We'll be honest with every one,” he said. “The stock in the company has all been sold. We'll make some of the machines and sell them. If they're failures, as this inventor thinks, it will not be our fault. The plant, you see, will have to be sold cheap. When that times comes we five will have to save ourselves and the future of the town. The machinery we have bought, is, you see, iron and wood working machinery, the very latest kind. It can be used to make some other thing. If the plant-setting machine is a failure we'll simply buy up the plant at a low price and make something else. Perhaps it'll be better for the town to have the entire stock control in our hands. You see we few men have got to run things here. It's going to be on our shoulders to see that labor is employed. A lot of small stock-holders are a nuisance. As man to man I'm going to ask each of you not to sell his stock, but if any one comes to you and asks about its value, I expect you to be loyal to our enterprise. I'll begin looking about for something to replace the plant-setting machine, and when the shop closes we'll start right up again. It isn't every day men get a chance to sell themselves a fine plant full of new machinery as we can do in a year or so now.”