ist had written,
"that no good can come from the further continuance of our syndicate. I
therefore propose to sell all my interest in our various properties to
the other members, and to retire. Should you care to consider such a
thing, I am prepared to make you an alternative offer, to buy your
interests. As the purchase of three shares by one is a heavier load than
the taking over of one share by three, I should expect to buy at a lower
proportional price than I should be willing to sell for. As the
management of our enterprises seems to have abandoned the tried
principles of business, for some considerations the precise nature of
which I am not acute enough to discern, and as a sale to me would balk
the very benevolent purposes recently avowed by you, I assume that I
shall not be called upon to make an offer.

"There is at least one person among those to whom this is addressed who
knows that in beginning our operations in Lattimore it was understood
that we should so manage affairs as to promote and take advantage of a
bulge in values, and then pull out with a profit. Just what may be his
policy when this reaches him I cannot, after my experience with his
ability as a lightning change artist, venture to predict; but my last
information leads me to believe that he is championing the utopian plan
of running the business, not only past the bulge, but into the slump. I,
for one, will not permit my fortune to be jeopardized by so palpable a
piece of perfidy.

"I may be allowed to add that I am prepared to take such measures as may
seem to my legal advisers best to protect my interests. I am assured
that the funds of one corporation will not be permitted by the courts
to be donated to the bolstering up of another, over the protest of a
minority stockholder. You may confidently assume that this advice will
be tested to the utmost before the acts now threatened are permitted to
be actually done.

"I attach hereto a schedule of our holdings, with the amount of my
interest in each, and the price I will take. I trust that I may have an
answer to this at your earliest convenience. I beg to add that any great
delay in answering will be taken by me as a refusal on your part to do
anything, and I shall act accordingly.

"Very respectfully,
"J. Bedford Cornish."

"Huh!" ejaculated Harper, "would he do it, d'ye think?"

"He's a very resolute man," s