“Didn’t you hear about it? Well, say! I happen to know that a month ago Mr. De Reamer actually didn’t have the money to carry this work through. Even when Commodore Durfee started building for Red Hills, he didn’t know which way to turn. The Commodore, you know, hadn’t any notion of stopping with the H.D.& W.” “No,” said Carhart, “I didn’t suppose he had.” “He was after us, too--wanted to do the same as he did with the High and Dry, corner the stock.” Tiffany chuckled. “But he knew he’d have to corner Daniel De Reamer first. If he didn’t, the old gentleman would manufacture shares by the hundred thousand and pump ’em right into him. There’s the Paradise Southern,--that’s been a regular fountain of stock. You knew about that.” Carhart shook his head. “We passed through Paradise this noon.” “Yes, I know the line. It runs down from Paradise to Total Wreck. But I didn’t know it had anything to do with S. & W. capital stock.” “Didn’t, eh?” chuckled Tiffany. “Mr. De Reamer and Mr. Chambers own it, you know, and they’re directors in both lines. The old game was for them, as P. S. directors, to lease the short line to themselves as S. & W. directors. Then the S.& W. directors pay the P. S. directors--only they’re it both ways--in S. & W. stock. Don’t you see? And it’s only one of a dozen schemes. The old gentleman’s always ready for S. & W. buyers.” Carhart smiled. The car lurched and shivered. Such air as came in through the open door and windows was tainted with the gases of the locomotive, and with the mingled odors of the densely packed laborers in the cars ahead. “That’s really the only reason they’ve kept up the Paradise Southern--for there isn’t any business on the line. Well, as I was saying, the Commodore knew that the first thing he had to do was corner Mr. De Reamer, and keep him from creating stock. So he came down on him all at once, with a heap of injunctions and court orders. He did it thorough: restrained the S. & W. board from issuing any more stock, or from completing any of the transactions on hand, and temporarily suspended the old gentleman and Mr. Chambers, pending an investigation of their accounts, and ordered ’em to return to the treasury of the company the seventy thousand shares they created last year. There was a lot more, but that’s the gist of it. He did it through Waring and his other minority directors on the board. And right at the start, you see, when he began to buy, he made S. & W. stock so scarce that the price shot up.” “Seems as if he had sewed up the S. & W. pretty tight,” observed Carhart.