Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/132

 Those factory walls that never stopped rising had eaten up much money. Milton Morris, honest old builder that he was, had been dissatisfied with the turn-out of what he considered was practically an "assembled" car, and wanted to build every part himself to the last screw in a fender.

But this absorbed capital at an enormous rate. It swallowed their surplus, and when the plans for the new year's business were included, it left the concern needing eight hundred thousand dollars at a time when as many hundreds would have been hard to get. The young financier found himself stretched over a barrel. He had to have credit when credit was difficult to get, and two fatalities among his friends made the situation even worse than could be made to appear in any financial statement. Just as he entered the cloud of these business troubles Uncle Tommy Pence, his faithful and generous friend, slipped peacefully out of life. They laid him away when bees were droning in the clover and humming-birds were at the honeysuckle. George mourned him and paid his tribute, but staggered on till one day, when the clouds were darkest, he turned in to the offices of the St. Clair Trust Company, where they told him that Stephen Gilman was down, stricken with pneumonia.

To learn as George did next day that Stephen