"I'm going to get
hold of that factory, if I can, and I'm going to manufacture corn-cutting
machines. Already I have promises of orders enough to keep running for a
year. I can't take you in with me and have it said around town you were
one of the fellows who sold out the small investors. I've got a hundred
thousand dollars of stock in the company. You can have half of it. I'll
take your note for the fifty thousand. You won't ever have to pay it. The
earnings of the new factory will clean you up. You got to come clean,
though. Of course you can go get John Clark and come out and make an open
fight to get the factory yourselves, if you want to. I own the rights to
the corn-cutting machine and will take it somewhere else and manufacture
it. I don't mind telling you that, if we split up, I will pretty well
advertise what you three fellows did to the small investors after I asked
you not to do it. You can all stay here and own your empty factory and get
what satisfaction you can out of the love and respect you'll get from the
people. You can do what you please. I don't care. My hands are clean. I
ain't done anything I'm ashamed of, and if you want to come in with me, you
and I together will pull off something in this town we don't neither one of
us have to be ashamed of."
The two men drove back to the Butterworth farm house and Tom got out of the
buggy. He intended to tell Steve to go to the devil, but as they drove
along the road, he changed his mind.
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