“What remains to you over and above,” Ernest interrupted to ask, “would roughly be the equivalent of your salary as a manager did the railroad own the quarry.”

“The very thing,” Mr. Asmunsen replied.  “Only a short time ago I had my books gone through for the past ten years.  I discovered that for those ten years my gain was just equivalent to a manager’s salary.  The railroad might just as well have owned my quarry and hired me to run it.”

“But with this difference,” Ernest laughed; “the railroad would have had to assume all the risk which you so obligingly assumed for it.”

“Very true,” Mr. Asmunsen answered sadly.

Having let them have they say, Ernest began asking questions right and left.  He began with Mr. Owen.

“You started a branch store here in Berkeley about six months ago?”

“Yes,” Mr. Owen answered.

“And since then I’ve noticed that three little corner groceries have gone out of business.  Was your branch store the cause of it?”

Mr. Owen affirmed with a complacent smile.  “They had no chance against us.”

“Why not?”

“We had greater capital.  With a large business there is always less waste and greater efficiency.”

“And your branch store absorbed the profits of the three small ones.  I see.  But tell me, what became of the owners of the three stores?”

“One is driving a delivery wagon for us.  I don’t know what happened to the other two.”

Ernest turned abruptly on Mr. Kowalt.

“You sell a great deal at cut-rates.* What have become of the owners of the small drug stores that you forced to the wall?”

* A lowering of selling price to cost, and even to less than cost.  Thus, a large company could sell at a loss for a longer period than a small company, and so drive the small company out of business.  A common device of competition.

“One of them, Mr. Haasfurther, has charge now of our prescription department,” was the answer.

“And you absorbed the profits they had been making?”

“Surely.  That is what we are in business for.”

“And you?” Ernest said suddenly to Mr. Asmunsen.  “You are disgusted because the railroad has absorbed your profits?”

Mr. Asmunsen nodded.

“What you want is to make profits yourself?”

Again Mr. Asmunsen nodded.

“Out of others?”

There was no answer.

“Out of others?” Ernest insisted.

“That is the way profits are made,” Mr. Asmunsen replied curtly.

“Then the business game is to make profits out of others, and to prevent others from making profits out of you.  That’s it, isn’t it?”

Ernest had to repeat his question before Mr. Asmunsen gave an answer, and then he said: 

“Yes, that’s it, except that we do not object to the others making profits so long as they are not extortionate.”