Reinhold pretended not to hear these unkind words, and excusing himself, hurried away. The door had closed behind him; father and son were face to face. "What do you want of me here!" asked Uncle Ernst, as if he were speaking to a third person crouching on the floor a few paces to the right of Philip. "I come on business," answered Philip, as if the person he addressed were floating in the air a few feet to the right of his father. "I decline to transact any business with you." "But perhaps not with the directors of the Berlin and Sundin Railway Company?" "I decline all business with the Berlin and Sundin Railway Company." "You are standing in your own light. The business would be highly advantageous to you. We have got in our pockets a concession for the island railroad which is the continuation of our own railroad. Our station must be added to. When I had the pleasure of working with you, we bought together the land on which the station stands----" "Upon your share," allow me to remark. "Upon my share because you would not part with yours----" "I had advanced you the money for the purchase of yours; so far as I know you had none then." "I am the more indebted to you; you laid thereby the foundation of my present prosperity; for, recognising and profiting by the opportunity, I sold a portion to the company----" "Which you had no right to sell." "I had already repaid you your money, to the last farthing, with the proper interest." "And had only forgotten the small circumstance that I gave you the money for the sole purpose of erecting--in partnership with me--cheap dwellings for workmen on that ground. It is true there was no written agreement." "Fortunately for me, and I should say for you too! After what happened yesterday, you have probably lost all desire to improve the condition of these heroes of strikes and riots, as you have hitherto done to your own cost. But you can now repay yourself what you have spent. Your colony of work-people has, one way or another, never thriven, and is now at its last gasp. Put an end to it once for all. Quarter-day is at hand; we do not want the land before the new year; some of the houses will be empty now, particularly if you put some pressure on the people, and we will pay as if your cottages were so many four-storied houses." "Where will you get the money from, if I may venture to ask?" "Where from? Where we have always got it."