Mr. Hinckley staid his thirty minutes and withdrew. Mr. Cornish went to the telephone and ordered his dog-cart.
"Immediately," he instructed, "over here at the Grain Belt Trust Building."
"Make it in half an hour, can't you, Cornish?" said Jim. "There are some more things we ought to go over."
"Say!" shouted Cornish into the transmitter. "Make that in half an hour instead of at once."
He hung up the telephone, and turned to Elkins inquiringly. Jim was walking up and down on the rug, his hands clasped behind him.
"Since we've spread out into that string of banks," said he, still keeping up his walk, "and made Mr. Hinckley the president of each of 'em, he's reverting to his old banker's timidity. Which consists, in all cases, in an aversion to any change in conditions. To suggest any change, even from an old, dangerous policy to a new safe one, startles a 'conservative' banker. If we had gone on a little longer with our talk about shutting off steam and taking the nigger off the safety-valve, you'd have seen him scared into a numbness. But, now that the question has been brought up, let's talk it over. What's your notion about it, anyhow, Al?"
"I'm seeking light," said I. "The people are rushing in, and the town's doing splendidly. But prices, there's no denying it, are beginning to sort of strangle things. They prevent doing, any more, what we did at first. Kreuger Brothers' failure yesterday was small; but it's a clear case of a retailer's being eaten up with fixed charges--or so Macdonald told me this morning; and I know that frontage on Main Street is demanding fully as much as the traffic will bear. And then our fright over Trescott's gambling gave me some bad dreams over our securities. It has bothered me to see how to adjust our affairs to a stationary condition of things; that's all."
"Of course," said Cornish, "we must keep boosting. Fortunately society here is now thoroughly organized on the principle of whooping it up for Lattimore. I could get up a successful lynching-party any time to attend to the case of any miscreant who should suggest that property is too high, or rents unreasonable, or anything but a steady up-grade before us. But I think we ought to stop buying--except among ourselves, and keep the transfers from falling off--and begin salting down."