“I’ll elucidate, Carl, though it’s scarcely a matter for advertisement,” went on the other.  “Hasn’t it occurred to you that Malone and I started life in very similar fashion?  Each of us came raw and uninitiated from the country.  Each of us brought rugged physiques and fairly alert minds to our tasks.  Each of us has, I think, been fairly successful.”  Hamilton Burton paused to laugh frankly at his own modesty of expression.

“Each of us has been a little swifter than the generality in reading signs; a little bolder in conception and execution.  If you read the papers you will gather that each of us is, in private life, impeccable, and each of us is, in business, as merciless as an epidemic.”

“That is the voice of envy,” protested the younger man with heat.

“Thank you.  I am grateful for the acquittal.  There is room for only one absolute master.  Only one side of a coin can lie face up at the same time.  Heads or tails must be turned down.”

To the front of Malone’s mind a train of dispassionate logic had forced a similar conviction.  As between himself and this rising sun of finance it was a matter of heads or tails.  In consequence, on a certain June afternoon his yacht, Albatross, cleared from its slip in the Hudson and stood out toward midstream with her prow pointed toward the bay and the narrows.

It was a sparkling day, warm enough to make the breeze agreeable as it fanned the faces of the loungers on the white deck.  J.J.  Malone himself was seemingly nothing more formidable than the unexcelled host.  As he leaned, bareheaded, on the rail of the forward deck the river breath stirred his iron-gray hair and his changeful eyes were kindly and atwinkle.  Yet the party had not been wholly devised for purposes of pleasuring.  There were no ladies on board and only four men exclusive of the crew.  These four could swing directorates controlling the major interests of Consolidated.  For this twenty-four hours of cruising, one had come down from Newport, one had delayed his sailing date to Europe and the third, H.A.  Harrison, had left the entertainment of his guests at Haverly Lodge in the hands of others.

Dinner passed with no reference to business.  Anecdote and repartee held the right of way, but later when the myriad lights of lower Manhattan glowed out like the fire-spray of a thousand arrested rockets, cigars were lighted and the flanneled quartette settled back into their four deck-chairs.  Then it was that Harrison gave the cue with a terse question:  “Well, why are we here?” Instantly Malone’s face altered.

“To consider a method for clipping Burton’s claws,” he announced with decisive brevity.

“Why not let sleeping dogs lie?” The inquiry came thoughtfully from Meegan of the Cosmopolitan Bank.

Malone’s voice rang like steel on flint.  “Gentlemen, this man is a charlatan.  As his power grows his menace increases.  Consolidated has never brooked disobedience nor insolence.  It has been our policy to reward the faithful servant and punish the unfaithful.”  He glanced around the group, then continued in the manner of one issuing an edict.  “Heretofore we have not waited until the refractory child grew too big to punish.  We should not do so now.”