"'Do you mean that?' gasped Allis. He could hardly credit his ears.

"'Come downstairs and I'll write you a check!' said Stagg. And so
they hauled him down, and they bought his mill. Then they opened
some more champagne, and Allis began to get good-natured, too.

"'There's only one thing the matter with my mill,' said he, 'and
that's Jones's mill over in Harristown. The railroads give him
rebates, and he undersells me.'

"'Well, damn his soul,' said Stagg, 'we'll have his mill, too.'

"And so they bundled into their special again, and about six o'clock
in the morning they got to Harristown, and they bought another mill.
And that started them, you know. They'd never had such fun in their
lives before. It seems that Stagg had just cleaned up ten or twelve
millions on a big Wall Street plunge, and they blew in every dollar,
buying steel mills--and paying two or three prices for every one,
of course."

Gamble paused and chuckled to himself. "What I'm telling you is the
story that Stagg told me," said he. "And of course you've got to
make allowances. He said he had no idea of what Dan Waterman had
been planning, but I fancy that was a lie. Harrison of Pittsburg had
been threatening to build a railroad of his own, and take away his
business from Waterman's roads, and so there was nothing for
Waterman to do but buy him out at three times what his mills were
worth. He took the mills that Stagg had bought at the same time.
Stagg had paid two or three prices, and Waterman paid him a couple