also a souvenir room, with candy and cigar counters, and as he turned
away from the telegraph desk he saw Princeman at the candy counter.
"No, I don't care for any of these," Princeman was saying. "If you
haven't maraschino chocolates I don't want any."
Sam immediately stepped back to the telegraph desk and sent another
wire to his brother:
"Express fresh box maraschino chocolates to Miss Josephine Stevens
Hollis Creek Inn enclose my card personal cards in upper right-hand
pigeonhole my desk."
Then he went up-stairs to get ready for lunch. Immediately after
luncheon he received the following wire from his brother:
"Stock subscription rotten everybody likes scheme but object to our
control but no hurry why don't you rest maraschinos shipped
congratulate you."
CHAPTER VII
WHICH EXHIBITS THE IMPORTANCE OF REMEMBERING A DANCE NUMBER
And so the kid was finding the same trouble which he had met. They had
been too frank in stating that they intended to obtain control of the
company without any larger investments than their patents and their
scheme. Sam wandered through the hall, revolving this matter in his
mind, and out at the rear door, which framed an inviting vista of
green. He strolled back past the barn toward the upper reaches of the
brook path, and sitting amid the comfortably gnarled roots of a big
tree he lit a cigar and began with violence to snap little pebbles into
the brook. If he were promoting a crooked scheme, he reflected
savagely, he would have no difficulty whatever in floating it upon
almost any terms he wanted. Well, there was one thing certain; at the
finish, control would be in his own hands! But how to secure it and
still float the company promptly and advantageously? There was the
problem. He liked this crowd. They were good, keen, vigorous,
enterprising men, fine men with whom to do business, men who would
snatch control away from him if they could, and throw him out in the
cold in a minute if they deemed it necessary or expedient. Of course
that was to be expected. It was a part of the game. He would rather
deal with these progressive people, knowing their tendencies, than with
a lot of sapheads.
How to get control? He lingered long and thoughtfully over that
question, perhaps an hour, until presently he became aware that a
slight young girl, with a fetching sun-hat and a basket, was walking
pensively along the path on the opposite side of the brook, for th
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