"
"And that we owe the men and the contractors nearly ten thousand dollars
besides?"
"Owe them! Oh bless my soul, you can't mean that you have not paid these
people?"
"But I do mean it!"
The president rose and walked the floor like a man in bodily pain. His
brows contracted, he put his hand up and clasped his forehead, and kept
saying, "Oh, it is, too bad, too bad, too bad! Oh, it is bound to be
found out--nothing can prevent it--nothing!"
Then he threw himself into his chair and said:
"My dear Mr. Brierson, this is dreadful--perfectly dreadful. It will be
found out. It is bound to tarnish the good name of the company; our
credit will be seriously, most seriously impaired. How could you be so
thoughtless--the men ought to have been paid though it beggared us all!"
"They ought, ought they? Then why the devil--my name is not Bryerson, by
the way--why the mischief didn't the compa--why what in the nation ever
became of the appropriation? Where is that appropriation?--if a
stockholder may make so bold as to ask."
"The appropriation?--that paltry $200,000, do you mean?"
"Of course--but I didn't know that $200,000 was so very paltry. Though I
grant, of course, that it is not a large sum, strictly speaking. But
where is it?"
"My dear sir, you surprise me. You surely cannot have had a large
acquaintance with this sort of thing.
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