“You seem to,” was the laconic reply.  “Now let us see exactly what it is that you want Mr. Farley to concede.”

“I want him to turn over the entire control of the company’s business, operative and financial, to my father.”

The lawyer smiled again.

“That is a pretty big asking.  Have you any reason to suppose that Mr. Farley will accede to any such demand?”

“Yes; I have very good reasons, but I reckon we needn’t go into them here and now.  The time is too short; their liner sails at ten.”

The attorney tilted his chair and became reflective.

“The simple way out of it is to have Mr. Farley constitute your father, or yourself, his proxy to vote his stock at a certain specified meeting of the stock-holders, which can be called later.  Of course, with a majority vote of the stock, you can rearrange matters to suit yourselves, subject only to Mr. Farley’s disarrangement when he resumes control of his holdings.  How would that serve?”

“You’re the doctor,” said Tom bruskly.  “Any way to get him out and get my father in.”

“It’s the simplest way, as I say.  But if the property is worth anything at all, I should think Mr. Farley would fight you to a finish before he would consent.”

“You fix up the papers, Mr. Croswell, and I’ll see to it that he consents.  Make the proxy run in my father’s name.”

The attorney went into another room and dictated to his stenographer.  While he was absent, Tom sat, watch in hand, counting the minutes.  It was his first pitched battle with the Farleys, and victory promised.  But with industrial panic in the air the victory threatened to be of the Cadmean sort, and a scowl of anxiety gathered between his eyes.

“Never mind,” he gritted, with an out-thrust of the square jaw; “it’s the Gordon fighting chance; and pappy says that’s all we’ve ever asked—­it’s all I’m going to ask, anyway.  But I wish Ardea wasn’t going over with that crowd!”

The conference in Room 327, Fifth Avenue Hotel, held while the carriages were waiting to take the steamer party to the pier, was brief and businesslike.  Something to Tom’s surprise, Major Dabney was present; and a little later he learned, with a shock of resentment, that the Major was also a minority stock-holder in the moribund Chiawassee Consolidated.  The master of Deer Trace was as gracious to Caleb Gordon’s son as only a Dabney knew how to be.

“Nothing could give me greateh pleasure, my deah boy, than this plan of having youh fatheh in command at Gordonia,” he beamed, shaking Tom’s hand effusively.  “I hope you’ll have us all made millionaihs when we get back home again; I do, for a fact, suh.”

Tom smiled and shook his head.

“It looks pretty black, just now, Major.  I’m afraid we’re in for rough weather.”

“Oh, no; not that, son; a meah passing cloud.”  And then, with the big Dabney laugh:  “You youngstehs oughtn’t to leave it for us old fellows to keep up the stock of optimism, suh.  A word in youh ear, young man:  if these heah damned Yankee rascals would quit thei-uh monkeying right heah in Wall Street, the country would take on a new lease of life, suh; it would for a fact,” and he said it loudly enough to be heard in the corridor.