Part 45 (1/2)

I remember that even at the sight of him I had a sense of impending calamity. He sat under the electric light with the shadow of his hair making bars down his face. He looked shrunken, and as though his skin had suddenly got loose and yellow. The decorations of the room seemed to have lost freshness, and outside the blinds were up--there was not so much fog as a dun darkness. One saw the dingy outlines of the chimneys opposite quite distinctly, and then a sky of such brown as only London can display.

”I saw a placard,” I said: ”'More Ponderevity.'”

”That's Boom,” he said. ”Boom and his d.a.m.ned newspapers. He's trying to fight me down. Ever since I offered to buy the Daily Decorator he's been at me. And he thinks consolidating Do Ut cut down the ads. He wants everything, d.a.m.n him! He's got no sense of dealing. I'd like to bash his face!”

”Well,” I said, ”what's to be done?”

”Keep going,” said my uncle.

”I'll smash Boom yet,” he said, with sudden savagery.

”Nothing else?” I asked.

”We got to keep going. There's a scare on. Did you notice the rooms?

Half the people out there this morning are reporters. And if I talk they touch it up!... They didn't used to touch things up! Now they put in character touches--insulting you. Don't know what journalism's coming to. It's all Boom's doing.”

He cursed Lord Boom with considerable imaginative vigour.

”Well,” said I, ”what can he do?”

”Shove us up against time, George; make money tight for us. We been handling a lot of money--and he tightens us up.”

”We're sound?”

”Oh, we're sound, George. Trust me for that! But all the same--There's such a lot of imagination in these things.... We're sound enough. That's not it.”

He blew. ”d.a.m.n Boom!” he said, and his eyes over his gla.s.ses met mine defiantly.

”We can't, I suppose, run close hauled for a bitstop expenditure?”

”Where?”

”Well,--Crest Hill”

”What!” he shouted. ”Me stop Crest Hill for Boom!” He waved a fist as if to hit his inkpot, and controlled himself with difficulty. He spoke at last in a reasonable voice. ”If I did,” he said, ”he'd kick up a fuss.

It's no good, even if I wanted to. Everybody's watching the place. If I was to stop building we'd be down in a week.”

He had an idea. ”I wish I could do something to start a strike or something. No such luck. Treat those workmen a sight too well. No, sink or swim, Crest Hill goes on until we're under water.”

I began to ask questions and irritated him instantly.

”Oh, dash these explanations, George!” he cried; ”You only make things look rottener than they are. It's your way. It isn't a case of figures.

We're all right--there's only one thing we got to do.”

”Yes?”

”Show value, George. That's where this quap comes in; that's why I fell in so readily with what you brought to me week before last. Here we are, we got our option on the perfect filament, and all we want's canadium.

n.o.body knows there's more canadium in the world than will go on the edge of a sixpence except me and you. n.o.body has an idee the perfect filament's more than just a bit of theorising. Fifty tons of quap and we'd turn that bit of theorising into something. We'd make the lamp trade sit on its tail and howl. We'd put Ediswan and all of 'em into a parcel without last year's trousers and a hat, and swap 'em off for a pot of geraniums. See? We'd do it through Business Organisations, and there you are! See? Capern's Patent Filament!