oods by the
hundredfold. We paid no duty on the products shipped in from our South
American factories for they competed only with ourselves and we did the
country the humanitarian service of preventing a famine by rushing
carload after carload westward, rising above all thoughts of petty gain
by making no increase whatever in our prices despite the expanding
demand.

_52._ About this time it became indisputable that Button Gwynnet Fles
was no longer of value to Consolidated Pemmican. His Yankee shrewdness
and caution which enabled him to run the corporation when it was merely
a name and a quotation on the stockmarket had the limits of its virtues.
He was extraordinarily provincial in outlook and quite unable to see the
concern on a world scale. In view of our vast expansion such narrowness
had become an unbearable hindrance.

I had permitted him to hold a limited number of shares and to act
nominally as secretary in order to comply with the regulations of the
Security and Exchange Commission, but now it was expedient to add to our
officers directors of other companies whose fields were complementary to
ours. Besides, in General Thario I had a much abler assistant and so,
perhaps reluctantly because of my oversensitivity, I displaced Fles and
making the general president of the corporation I accepted the post of
chairman of the board.

I must say he took a perfectly natural business move with unbecoming
illgrace. "It was mine, Mr Weener, you know it was mine and I did not
protest when you stole it; I worked loyally and unselfishly for you. It
isnt the money, Mr Weener, really it isnt--it's the idea of being thrown
out of my own business. At least let me stay on the Board of Directors;
youll never have any trouble from me, I promise you that."

It distressed me to reject his abject plea, but my hands were tied by my
devotion to the welfare of the company. Besides, he annoyed me by his
palpably untrue reference to what had been a legitimate transaction,
never giving a thought to my generosity in not exposing his chicanery,
nor the fact that the dummy he manipulated bore no resemblance whatever
to the firm I had brought by my own effort to its present size.

Leaving matters in the able hands of General Thario, after warning Joe
he had better soon return to his father's assistance, I went abroad to
arrange for wider European representation. There I found a curious
eagerness to be of help to me and almost fawning servi