that their
terms--except in the case of certain standard articles which they were
obliged to have--embraced nearly all the profits, only the very
narrowest margins coming to the original owners. Everything had to be
figured down, and still further and further down, by those owners, to
make that margin possible. It was cutthroat all the way through--a
policy that made for the rottenness of trade.

Justin and Leverich had once made tentative investigations as to
Hardanger, with the conclusion that there was far more money outside,
even if one must go a little more slowly. It was better to go a little
more slowly, for the sake of getting so much more out of it in the
end. Hardanger was to be kept as a last resort, if everything else
failed. Cater had expressed himself as feeling the same way; that was
the understanding between them. But now? Backed by this powerful
agency, the timoscript assumed disquieting proportions. In the
distance, a time not so very far distant either, Justin could see
himself squeezed to the wall, the output of his factory bought up by
Hardanger for the price of old iron--forced into it, whether he would
or no. Why had he been so short-sighted? Why hadn't he made terms
himself sooner? But Cater had been a fool to give in to those terms
when, by combining, they could have swung trade between them to their
own measure. Then Hardanger might have been obliged to seek _them_, to
take their price!--Hardanger, who could afford to laugh at his
pretensions now!

He thought of Cater without malice--with, instead, a shrewd, kind
philosophy, a sad, clear-visioned impulse of pity mixed with his
wonder. So that was the way a man was caught stumbling between the
meshes, blinded, dulled, unconsciously maimed of honor, while still
feeling himself erect and honest-eyed! There had been no written
agreement between them that either should consult the other before
seeking Hardanger; but some promises should be all the stronger for
not being written.

This thing _couldn't_ happen; in some way, he must get his foot inside
the door, so that it couldn't shut on him. There was that note of
Lewiston's, due in thirty days--no, twenty-five now. What about that?

Later in the day, after he had been seeing drayful after drayful of
boxes leave the factory opposite, Bullen, the foreman, came into the
office with some estimates, pointing out the figures with a small
strip of steel tubing held absently in his fingers.

While t