Ryder bowed coldly, and Mr. Grimsby continued:  “But during the last year or two things have gone wrong.  There has been a lot of litigation, most of which has gone against us, and it has cost a heap of money.  It reduced the last quarterly dividend very considerably, and the new complication—­this Auburndale suit, which also has gone against us—­is going to make a still bigger hole in our exchequer.  Gentlemen, I don’t want to be a prophet of misfortune, but I’ll tell you this—­unless something is done to stop this hostility in the courts you and I stand to lose every cent we have invested in the road.  This suit which we have just lost means a number of others.  What I would ask our chairman is what has become of his former good relations with the Supreme Court, what has become of his influence, which never failed us.  What are these rumours regarding Judge Rossmore?  He is charged in the newspapers with having accepted a present from a road in whose favour he handed down a very valuable decision.  How is it that our road cannot reach Judge Rossmore and make him presents?”

The speaker sat down, flushed and breathless.  The expression on every face showed that the anxiety was general.  The directors glanced at Ryder, but his face was expressionless as marble.  Apparently he took not the slightest interest in this matter which so agitated his colleagues.

Another director rose.  He was a better speaker than Mr. Grimsby, but his voice had a hard, rasping quality that smote the ears unpleasantly.  He said: 

“Mr. Chairman, none of us can deny what Mr. Grimsby has just put before us so vividly.  We are threatened not with one, but with a hundred such suits, unless something is done either to placate the public or to render its attacks harmless.  Rightly or wrongly, the railroad is hated by the people, yet we are only what railroad conditions compel us to be.  With the present fierce competition, no fine question of ethics can enter into our dealings as a business organization.  With an irritated public and press on one side, and a hostile judiciary on the other, the outlook certainly is far from bright.  But is the judiciary hostile?  Is it not true that we have been singularly free from litigation until recently, and that most of the decisions were favourable to the road?  Judge Rossmore is the real danger.  While he is on the bench the road is not safe.  Yet all efforts to reach him have failed and will fail.  I do not take any stock in the newspaper stories regarding Judge Rossmore.  They are preposterous.  Judge Rossmore is too strong a man to be got rid of so easily.”

The speaker sat down and another rose, his arguments being merely a reiteration of those already heard.  Ryder did not listen to what was being said.  Why should he?  Was he not familiar with every possible phase of the game?  Better than these men who merely talked, he was planning how the railroad and all his other interests could get rid of this troublesome judge.