“Ah, very well then.  Now we begin to understand each other.”

“Well, I don’t see that we do.  There’s two months’ wages due the men, and——­”

“How?  Haven’t you paid the men?”

“Paid them!  How are we going to pay them when you don’t honor our drafts?”

“Why, my dear sir, I cannot see how you can find any fault with us.  I am sure we have acted in a perfectly straight forward business way.—­Now let us look at the thing a moment.  You subscribed for 100 shares of the capital stock, at $1,000 a share, I believe?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“And Mr. Sellers took a like amount?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well.  No concern can get along without money.  We levied a ten per cent. assessment.  It was the original understanding that you and Mr. Sellers were to have the positions you now hold, with salaries of $600 a month each, while in active service.  You were duly elected to these places, and you accepted them.  Am I right?”

“Certainly.”

“Very well.  You were given your instructions and put to work.  By your reports it appears that you have expended the sum of $9,610 upon the said work.  Two months salary to you two officers amounts altogether to $2,400—­about one-eighth of your ten per cent. assessment, you see; which leaves you in debt to the company for the other seven-eighths of the assessment—­viz, something over $8,000 apiece.  Now instead of requiring you to forward this aggregate of $16,000 or $17,000 to New York, the company voted unanimously to let you pay it over to the contractors, laborers from time to time, and give you credit on the books for it.  And they did it without a murmur, too, for they were pleased with the progress you had made, and were glad to pay you that little compliment —­and a very neat one it was, too, I am sure.  The work you did fell short of $10,000, a trifle.  Let me see—­$9,640 from $20,000 salary $2;400 added—­ah yes, the balance due the company from yourself and Mr. Sellers is $7,960, which I will take the responsibility of allowing to stand for the present, unless you prefer to draw a check now, and thus——­”

“Confound it, do you mean to say that instead of the company owing us $2,400, we owe the company $7,960?”

“Well, yes.”

“And that we owe the men and the contractors nearly ten thousand dollars besides?”

“Owe them!  Oh bless my soul, you can’t mean that you have not paid these people?”

“But I do mean it!”

The president rose and walked the floor like a man in bodily pain.  His brows contracted, he put his hand up and clasped his forehead, and kept saying, “Oh, it is, too bad, too bad, too bad!  Oh, it is bound to be found out—­nothing can prevent it—­nothing!”

Then he threw himself into his chair and said: 

“My dear Mr. Brierson, this is dreadful—­perfectly dreadful.  It will be found out.  It is bound to tarnish the good name of the company; our credit will be seriously, most seriously impaired.  How could you be so thoughtless—­the men ought to have been paid though it beggared us all!”