"Now, wait a minute, Braine, and don't go off half-cocked. Really, that's your one fault, and you must cure it. Let me tell you about this thing. I felt as you do about it, but since we talked it over, I've had more light. I've been in correspondence with the railroad people, you know, and I understand their plans better now. I have a letter from Duncan this morning, in which he says—let me see," glancing over the letter, and finding out the part he wanted to read. "Oh, yes, here it is: 'You quite understand me now. You're one of us'—no, that isn't it—that refers to another matter. Ah! I have it: 'We depend upon you to see the thing through in that charter election. Young Braine will certainly kill it if he isn't gagged. Why not let him in on the ground floor a little? He may be of great use to us in carrying out the other matter, and if we don't control him, he's sure to do us a great deal of damage. Can't you explain the thing to him, and make him see it in its right light?' There, I oughtn't to have read the letter to you because I can't read it all. Some of it's confidential, and hearing only a scrap that way, the expressions seem blind and misleading to you."
"I think I understand better than you suppose, Mr. Hildreth. This man Duncan has bought your favor for his scheme; you have been fighting the ring, not to break it, but to break into it, and you've succeeded. Now the fellow wants to buy me. He can't do it, that's all."
"Very well, only don't think Abner Hildreth a fool. I didn't blunder into reading that part of the letter to you. I did it on purpose. I wanted you to understand the lay of the land; and decide for yourself. What are you going to do about it?"
"I'm going to expose the whole criminal conspiracy. I'm going to fight this greedy gang of speculators, and I'm going to beat them at the polls."
"How will you go about all that?"
"In the Enterprise."
"But I own the Enterprise, you remember Braine, and naturally you can't do it in my paper. I've never asked you to help me in any of my enterprises, but I shan't let you use the paper to hurt the biggest one I ever engaged in. You can't do this in any other paper, because you've driven the Argus out of town, and I took pains to buy the Item this morning early, on the chance of its being turned against me. I've got a bill of sale of the whole concern, stock, lock, and barrel, in my pocket now!"
"My God!" exclaimed Braine, for the first time realizing his helplessness, and the consequences it involved with respect to his marriage and his future.
"Don't swear, Edgar. It's immoral. I'm a religious man myself, and might put the matter in a stronger way; but you're not a professor of religion, and so I only say its immoral."
Edgar sat thinking for ten minutes, during which neither man spoke. Then Hildreth said:
"You mustn't take an unbusiness-like view of this thing, Edgar—"
"Call me by my last name, please—somehow I like it better," interrupted the young man.
"Oh, all right. As I was saying, you oughtn't to look at this thing in your high and mighty way. It's unbusiness-like. It isn't practical. Let me explain a little. This is a great business enterprise, far-reaching, and sure to make Thebes great. The men who are engineering it and putting their money into it, naturally want some return. They ask this right of way—"
"And intend to steal the whole levee under cover of a swindling document," broke in Braine.
"Now don't get excited, and use harsh terms. These men want certain privileges in return for making Thebes a great railroad centre, and the Common Council is willing to make the grant as soon as the people, by a vote, give them authority under the law. You have thought it would be your duty to oppose the thing, but I have shown you its nature, and asked you to change your opinion. You can carry this election by the influence of the Enterprise. We ask you to do it, and tell you that if you do you shall be let in on the ground floor. I'll make that more definite. If you help us, on the day after the election the Enterprise—good-will, business, presses, type, and everything, shall be Edgar Braine's, absolutely, to do what he pleases with, and in any political, or other aspirations he may have, he will enjoy the support of the moneyed interest of the State. If you refuse to help, why, naturally, I must put a man in charge of the Enterprise who will. He is at my office now."
Braine said nothing for a long time. He was taking account of his situation. He had thought himself prosperous. In fact, if he broke with Hildreth, he had scarcely more than the fifty dollars with which he had come to Thebes several years before. He might have saved a few thousands from the earnings of the Enterprise, but he had preferred, in his eagerness to make the paper successful, to spend the money in improvements. All his plans had been laid with reference to his continuance in his present position, with the certain income it secured. But Abner Hildreth held all his prospects and all his plans in the hollow of his hand, to do what he would with them.
It was a choice between certain ruin on the one hand, and practically limitless success on the other, for he saw more clearly than Hildreth did, how potent a lever the influence of the "moneyed interest" might be made, and how much more perfectly he could command its aid than Abner Hildreth dreamed.
The temptation was frightful. The horror of such iniquity in his soul was not less so.
"This craze of speculation, which seems to dominate everything of late years in our money-cursed country, is a very Juggernaut," he said at last, in bitterness of spirit, and less to Hildreth than to himself.
"Juggernaut?" responded the banker, "that's the Hindoo car that runs over people and crushes 'em, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Yes. Well now, let me call your attention to an interesting fact about that car. Did you ever observe that it never runs over the people that ride on it?"
"Yes. I've observed that. I'm not so sure that the analogy will hold, however. One might get jostled off, and fall under the wheels. But I seem to be almost under now." He hesitated a moment more, and then—"For safety I'll get on, and trust to my grip to hold on. I'll favor the proposal, Mr. Hildreth, and I'll carry it through at the polls."
Then changing his tone to one a little less grim and more cheerful, he went on: "But our contract has been rather indefinite in the past. Would you mind signing an agreement now as to the transfer of the Enterprise to me on the day after the election?"
"No, certainly not. I'll write it."
He wrote hurriedly and signed. Braine looked over the paper and tore it up.
"That's worthless," he said. "A contract without consideration can't be enforced. I want a legally binding agreement this time. I'll draw it."
He did so, and then read it to the banker, who assented to its terms, and was about to sign it when Braine stopped him.
"Wait a moment" he said; then raising his voice he called: "Mikey!"
The apprentice appeared, trembling lest judgment day had come for the sin of smoking cigarettes.
"I want you to see Mr. Hildreth and me sign this paper. Never mind reading it," he said, laying a blotting pad over the lines, as he saw the boy's eyes wandering curiously over the document. When the two had signed, he turned to Mikey and said:
"Now, write the word 'witness' in that corner, and sign your own name under it."
When the lad had finished, Braine turned to Hildreth, who was beamingly about to shake hands with him, and said in a strangely cold and haughty tone:
"I believe that finishes our business, Mr. Hildreth, and as I have some matters to discuss with Mikey, I beg you will excuse me. Good morning, sir."
Hildreth passed out of the office, astonishment, vexation, and triumph struggling for mastery in his mind.
"He's a cool hand, sure," he muttered, "to bow me out in that fashion, just when I'd bought him, body and breeches! Somehow I can't feel quite easy about this thing yet. He didn't act as though he thought he belonged to