You're going to stand
for it and keep on standin's for it. You're going to continue
supplying me and taking my paper until the pinch is over. How
you're going to do it is your trouble, not mine. You remember
what I did to Klinkner and the Altamont Trust Company? I know
the inside of your business better than you do yourself, and if
you try to drop me I'll smash you. Even if I'd be going to smash
myself, I'd find a minute to turn on you and bring you down with
me. It's sink or swim for all of us, and I reckon you'll find it
to your interest to keep me on top the puddle."
Perhaps his bitterest fight was with the stockholders of the
United Water Company, for it was practically the whole of the
gross earnings of this company that he voted to lend to himself
and used to bolster up his wide battle front. Yet he never
pushed his arbitrary rule too far. Compelling sacrifice from the
men whose fortunes were tied up with his, nevertheless when any
one of them was driven to the wall and was in dire need, Daylight
was there to help him back into the line. Only a strong man
could have saved so complicated a situation in such time of
stress, and Daylight was that man.
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