“Shouldn’t be s’prised.  I git your idee, McKettrick.  You’ve been figgerin’ from the start on smougin’ me out of what I invested in that road, eh?...  By the way, your stock’s in your name.  I’ll git the certificates out of the safe.”

McKettrick shoved the envelope in his pocket.  “The Seaboard Box and Paper Company will force you to remove your tracks from our land.  I’ll sue you for damages for your blunder.  The Seaboard will sue the new railroad for damages for failure to have the tracks into the cuttings on time.  I guess when we begin collecting judgments by levying on the new road, there won’t be much of it left.  The Seaboard will come pretty close to owning it.”

“And you and I will be frozen out, eh?” said Scattergood.

McKettrick purred and smiled.  “Exactly,” he said.  “Now, my advice to you is not to fight the thing.  You can’t deny the blunder and you’ll save cost of litigation.”

“What’s your proposition?”

“Transfer your stock to the Seaboard.”

“And lose a hunderd and two thousand?”

“It’s not our fault if you make expensive mistakes.”

“Course not,” said Scattergood.  “I admit I hain’t much on litigation.  S’posin’ you and me meets in Boston to-morrow with our lawyers, and sort of figger this thing out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out—­but I’ll meet you to-morrow.  You’re sensible to settle.”

“Calc’late I be,” said Scattergood.

That afternoon Johnnie Bones carried President Castle’s 49 per cent of the railroad’s stock to the G. & B. offices, and gave them into the hands of the railroad’s chief executive.

“Mr. Baines will be here to-morrow.  There will be a meeting at his hotel at three o’clock.  McKettrick will be there.”

“I’ll come,” said President Castle.

The meeting was held in the shabby hotel which Scattergood patronized.  McKettrick was there with his attorney, Scattergood was there with Johnnie Bones—­and last came President Castle.

At his entrance McKettrick scowled and leaped to his feet.

“What do you want here?” he demanded.

“Well,” said Mr. Castle, with a smile which descended into great depths of disagreeability, “I own forty-nine per cent of the stock in this concern.  I imagine I have a right to be here.”

“What’s that?  What’s that?” McKettrick glared at Scattergood, who sat placidly removing his shoes.

“Calc’late I’ll relieve my feet,” he said.

“So I got you, too,” McKettrick said to Castle.  “I didn’t figure on that luck.”

“Got me?  I’m interested.”

McKettrick explained at length, and, as he explained, Castle glared at him, and then at Scattergood, with increasing rage.  As he saw it there was a plot between Scattergood and McKettrick to get him—­and he appeared to have been gotten.  He started to speak, but Scattergood stopped him.