"Fishing's pretty good up there, let him fish for it." The voice of Birch was like ice. He was one of those who by nature are fitted for cold and ruthless action in time of stress. Most of his money had been made across the dissecting table of enterprises, and not at their birth. He was a financial surgeon, but no midwife, and had only been magnetized into his past support by the hypnotic personality of Clark. He was grimly mindful that Marsham, after waiting for years for his opening, had got more than even. Birch's cold mind now wondered for the first time whether, after all, the cut throat game he had once loved to play was worth the candle. Here was American credit and effort massacred by American ruthlessness and revenge. Marsham had pounced upon a weak point in the Consolidated's armor and pierced deep into the body corporate. He had struck to kill. "And would you shut down the pulp mill--market's good now?" persisted Stoughton. "I'd rivet the whole thing tight. The railway never paid,--at least directly--that we could reckon. It's costing more to ship pulp on our own boats than the rate at which we could ship by contract--and if they are not going to bring back coke, why run them? Gentlemen, this means a smash--an interval of anxiety, discomfort, loss of prestige, and--" "Go on, Elisha--" barked Riggs. "Oh, please go on!" "Prestige--and later reconstruction. In the meantime, we don't spend a cent on running anything, and find out exactly what we owe. Then comes new money, and," he added cynically, "a new bunch of directors." "And who will arrange that?" Riggs demanded abruptly. "One Robert Fisher Clark--if he has not lost all his power of magnetism." "Aren't you guessing a little too fast?" "No, it's quite possible. His argument will be that we didn't back him to the necessary limit--that another million would have done it--and," concluded Birch reflectively, "that may be perfectly true. But God knows we did what we could. What's this one?" He glanced at Wimperley, who was reading a telegram just brought in. Waiting your remittance for payroll, necessary that this be provided to-day, otherwise I anticipate serious disturbance here. It is advisable that I do not come to Philadelphia just yet as my leaving here would be wrongly interpreted. R.F.C. There fell a moment's silence, instantly recognized by all four as the precursor of grave events. Birch had spoken the thought that lurked in all their minds. To continue running meant another payroll to be met. It now appeared suicidal to have stretched their resources to the limit of their credit, but not one of them had remotely dreamed that a few thousand tons of steel rails were to drag the whole structure to toppling destruction. Birch, as usual, first pulled himself together. "It's put up or shut up, and we've got to tell Clark right now."