Ford made no effort to conceal his contempt for the financial gods.

"I don't imagine it will take you very long to tell it," he retorted.
"Nothing short of a combined earthquake and volcanic eruption would have
any effect upon that crowd."

"Oh, but you're wrong!" protested Adair. "That shot of yours with the
semiannual summary for a projectile stirred 'em up good. It seems that
Uncle Sidney and Hertford and Morelock--they're the executive committee,
you know--have had the auditor's figures for some days, but they hadn't
thought it necessary to harrow the feelings of the other members of the
board with the cataclysmic details. So there was a jolly row. Magnus
wanted to know, top-loftily, why a small official from the farther end
of the system should be the first to bring the news; and Mackie was so
wrathy that he inadvertently put the hot end of his cigar in his mouth.
Even Connolly woke up enough to say that it was blanked bad politics."

"But nothing came of it?" said Ford, hope rising in spite of the
negative query.

"No; nothing but a general hand-out of pretty sharp talk. What was
needed right then was a unifier--somebody who could take command and
coax or bully the scrapping factions into line. Magnus tried it, but
he's too smooth. Brewster was the man, but he has too many other and
bigger irons in the fire to care much about P. S-W. Connolly could have
done it if the scrap had been a political split, but he was out of his
element."

"Humph!" growled Ford. "It didn't occur to me that there were any