"If I leave them it will leave them in bad shape," Albert urged.
"That is just exactly what I want to do,"[459] his former employer replied.
Albert began to weaken. "I had," he afterwards told in court, ... "about $6000 altogether, or a little more. They had reason to know that I had some property there."[460] This was all he had to show for the work of a lifetime, and it began to look as if it were fading away under these reiterated threats and warnings, which went on from March to June. Albert gave way. He went to his lawyer, Mr. Truesdale, of Rochester. "We have come," said his former employer, who accompanied him, "to see what disposition can be made of Al's property."
"They are going to bust the company up," said Albert to his lawyer, when asked why he was going back to the Vacuum Company. "I am an indorser on one of its notes, and if I do not come back with the Vacuum, what property and money I have will be taken away from me."
The lawyer was pressed to tell how Albert could get out of his arrangement with his company. They could not get along without him, and were not likely to discharge him.
"If they won't release him or buy him out, the only other way," said the lawyer, "is to leave them, and take the consequences. If he has entered into a contract and violated it, I presume there will be a liability for damages as well as for the debts."
"I think there is other ways for Albert to get out of it," said the representative of the Vacuum method in commerce and morals.
"I see no way except to back out or sell out; no other honorable way," persisted the lawyer.
"Suppose he should arrange the machinery so it would bust up or smash up, what would the consequences be?"
"If negligently, carelessly, not purposely done, he would be only civilly liable for damages caused by his negligence; but if it was wilfully done, there would be a further criminal liability for malicious injury to the property of the company."
"You wouldn't want me, would you," said the poor man to his late employer and friend, "to do anything to lay myself liable?"
"You have been police justice," said the Vacuum man to the lawyer, "and have had some experience in criminal law. I would like to have you look up the law carefully on that point, and we will see you again."[461] Or, in effect: "See about how much crime we can commit," District Attorney Quinby paraphrased it afterwards to the jury.