Page:Arthur Stranger--The Stranger.djvu/17

Rh it was something in the nature of a cataclysm, the Chief getting down to The Works behind time.

"Yes," acknowledged Hardy, ignoring the sheaf of papers which his secretary had placed on the desk before him, "Yes, I ran into something!"

"Ran into something, sir?"

"I ran into the Truth, on my way down here this morning, and it threw me out of the rut where I'd been travelling."

A smile of tempered forbearance hovered for a moment about the mouth of the young man in spectacles. Then his features became serious, like a company at attention.

"Major Brown, of the Victory Loan Committee, has been waiting for some time, sir. He says you had promised him a decision about subscribing this morning."

Hardy moved his head, in assent, his thoughts still apparently elsewhere. "Show him in," he finally said.

The two men who had played marbles and then Rugby and then golf and had grown grey together shook hands with a touch of heartiness.

"I guess you know why I'm here, John," began the slimmer and straighter man of the two. "I'm here because I want your 'yes' or 'no' on this Victory Loan business. I call it a business, you'll notice, because it is a business and not a charity, a business that makes you a working partner with the biggest country in the New World. But I'm not going over that old ground again. You know what Ottawa has to face in the next year or two just as well as I do: our boys to be taken care of, the broken lads to get their patching-up and the sturdy ones to get their land settlements. Then we've got a big slice of Europe to feed and furnish, and to unload the stuff from your factory here and your farm out yonder we've got to give her credit. And we've got to do it before the other fellow beats us to it and takes that trade from under our nose. You know that better than I do. We've got to have ships, and we've got to have grain-cars and houses and hospitals. We've"

Hardy stopped him with a quick gesture which only his smile kept from being peremptory.