Dave. He stood with his shoulder toward Conward,
watching the dusk settling about the foothill city. The streets led
away into the gathering darkness, and the square brick blocks stood in
blue silhouette against a champagne sky. He became conscious of a
strange yearning for this young metropolis; a sort of parental brooding
over a boisterous, lovable, wayward youth. It was his city; no one
could claim it more than he. And it was a good city to look upon, and
to mingle in, and to dream about.

"I think," said Conward, "we can agree that the boom is over. Booms
feed upon themselves, and eventually they eat themselves up. We have
done well, on paper. The thing now is to convert our paper into cash."

Dave turned about. "You know I don't claim to be any great moralist,
Conward," he said, "and I have no pity for a gambler who deliberately
sits in and gets stung. Consequently I am not troubled with any
self-pity, nor any pity for you. And if you can get rid of our
holdings to other gamblers I have nothing to say. But if it is to be
loaded on to women who are investing the little savings of their
lives--women like Bert Morrison and Mrs. Hardy--then I am going to have
a good deal to say. And there is that man--what's his name?--Merton, I
think; a lunger if there ever was one; tuberculosis written all over
him; a widower, too, with a little boy, sent out here as his last
chance--you loaded him with stuff where he can't see the smoke of the
city, and you call it city property. That's what I want to talk
about," said Dave, with rising heat. "If business has to be done that
way, then I say, to hell with business!"

"I asked you not to quarrel," Conward returned, with remarkable
composure. "I suggested that we get at the facts. That seems to be a
business suggestion. I think we are agreed that the boom is over.
Values are on the down grade. The boomsters are departing. They are
moving on to new fields, as we should have done a year or two ago, but
I confess I had a sort of sentiment for this place. Well--that is the
price of sentiment. It won't mix with business. Now, granting that
the boom is over, where do we stand?

"We are rated as millionaires, but we haven't a thousand dollars in the
bank at this moment. This," he lifted Mrs. Hardy's cheque, "would have
seen us over next pay day, but you say the firm must have nothing to do
with it. And which is the more immoral--since you have spoken of
morality--