Part 24 (1/2)
”I haven't the slightest idea of what he might do. Especially”--he hesitated--”as you never have had any loans from his people--I understand--”
”No,” said Neergard; ”I haven't.”
”It's rather out of their usual, I believe--”
”So they say. But Long Island acreage needn't beg favours now. That's all over, Captain Selwyn. Fane, Harmon & Co. know that; Mr. Gerard ought to know it, too.”
Selwyn looked troubled. ”Shall I consult Mr. Gerard?” he repeated. ”I should like to if you have no objection.”
Neergard's small, close-set eyes were focused on a spot just beyond Selwyn's left shoulder.
”Suppose you sound him,” he suggested, ”in strictest--”
”Naturally,” cut in Selwyn dryly; and turning to his littered desk, opened the first letter his hand encountered. Now that his head was turned, Neergard looked full at the back of his neck for a long minute, then went out silently.
That night Selwyn stopped at his sister's house before going to his own rooms, and, finding Austin alone in the library, laid the matter before him exactly as Neergard had put it.
”You see,” he added, ”that I'm a sort of an a.s.s about business methods.
What I like--what I understand, is to use good judgment, go in and boldly buy a piece of property, wait until it becomes more valuable, either through improvements or the natural enhancement of good value, then take a legitimate profit, and repeat the process. That, in outline, is what I understand. But, Austin, this furtive pouncing on a thing and clubbing other people's money out of them with it--this slyly acquiring land that is necessary to an unsuspecting neighbour and then holding him up--I don't like. There's always something of this sort that prevents my cordial co-operation with Neergard--always something in the schemes which hints of--of squeezing--of something underground--”
”Like the water which he's going to squeeze out of the wells?”
Selwyn laughed.
”Phil,” said his brother-in-law, ”if you think anybody can do a profitable business except at other people's expense, you are an a.s.s.”
”Am I?” asked Selwyn, still laughing frankly.
”Certainly. The land is there, plain enough for anybody to see. It's always been there; it's likely to remain for a few aeons, I fancy.
”Now, along comes Meynheer Julius Neergard--the only man who seems to have brains enough to see the present value of that parcel to the Siowitha people. Everybody else had the same chance; n.o.body except Neergard knew enough to take it. Why shouldn't he profit by it?”
”Yes--but if he'd be satisfied to cut it up into lots and do what is fair--”
”Cut it up into nothing! Man alive, do you suppose the Siowitha people would let him? They've only a few thousand acres; they've _got_ to control that land. What good is their club without it? Do you imagine they'd let a town grow up on three sides of their precious game-preserve? And, besides, I'll bet you that half of their streams and lakes take rise on other people's property--and that Neergard knows it--the Dutch fox!”
”That sort of--of business--that kind of coercion, does not appeal to me,” said Selwyn gravely.
”Then you'd better go into something besides business in this town,”
observed Austin, turning red. ”Good Lord, man, where would my Loan and Trust Company be if we never foreclosed, never swallowed a good thing when we see it?”
”But you don't threaten people.”
Austin turned redder. ”If people or corporations stand in our way and block progress, of course we threaten. Threaten? Isn't the threat of punishment the very basis of law and order itself? What are laws for?
And we have laws, too--laws, under the law--”
”Of the State of New Jersey,” said Selwyn, laughing. ”Don't flare up, Austin; I'm probably not cut out for a business career, as you point out--otherwise I would not have consulted you. I know some laws--including 'The Survival of the Fittest,' and the 'Chain-of-Destruction'; and I have read the poem beginning
”'Big bugs have little bugs to bite 'em.'