Trouble?  Say, it was comin’ seven diff’rent ways there for awhile,—­our stocks on the slump, a quarterly bein’ passed, Congress actin’ up, a lot of gloom rumors floatin’ around about what was goin’ to happen to the tariff on steel, and the I Won’t Workers pullin’ off a big strike at one of our busiest plants.  But all these things was side issues compared to this scrap that develops between Old Hickory and Peter K. Groff.

Maybe you don’t know about Peter K.?  Well, he’s the Mesaba agent of Corrugated affairs, the big noise at the dirt end of the dividends.  It’s Groff handles the ore proposition, you understand, and it’s his company that does the inter-locking act between the ore mines and us and the railroads.

Course, I can’t give you all the details without pullin’ down a subpoena from the Attorney-General’s office, and I ain’t anxious to crowd Willie Rockefeller, or anybody like that, out of the witness chair.  But I can go as far as to state that, as near as I could dope it out, Peter K. was only standin’ on his rights, and if only him and Mr. Ellins could have got together for half an hour peaceable-like things could have been squared all around.  We needed Groff every tick of the clock, and just because he ain’t always polite in statin’ his views over the wire wa’n’t any first-class reason for us extendin’ him an official invitation to go sew his head in a bag.

Uh-huh, them was Old Hickory’s very words.  I stood by while he writes the message.  Then I takes it out and shows it to Piddie and grins.  You should have seen Piddie’s face.  He turns the color of green pea soup and gasps.  He’s got all the fightin’ qualities of a pet rabbit in him, Piddie has.

“But—­but that is a flat insult,” says he, “and Mr. Groff is a very irascible person!”

“A which?” says I.  “Never mind, though.  If he’s got anything on Old Hickory when it comes to pep in the disposition, he’s the real Tabasco Tommy.”

“But I still contend,” says Piddie, “that this reply should not be sent.”

“Course it shouldn’t,” says I.  “But who’s goin’ to point that out to the boss?  You?”

Piddie shudders.  I’ll bet he went home that night and told Wifey to prepare for the end of the world.  Course, I knew it meant a muss.  But when Old Hickory’s been limpin’ around with a gouty toe for two weeks, and his digestion’s gone on the fritz, and things in gen’ral has been breakin’ bad—­well, it’s a case of low barometer in our shop, and waitin’ to see where the lightnin’ strikes first.  Might’s well be pointed at Peter K., thinks I, as at some Wall Street magnate or me.  Course, Groff goes up in the air a mile, threatens to resign from the board, and starts stirrin’ up a minority move that’s liable to end most anywhere.

Then, right in the midst of it, Old Hickory accumulates his annual case of grip, runs up a temperature that ain’t got anything to do with his disposition, and his doctor gives orders for him not to move out of the house for a week.