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 throat dry and voice reverberating in it hollowly as in ghostly chambers.

So they were proposing to oust him? A wildness appeared in his eye, and his dark cheeks purpled with resentful wrath.

"Gentlemen, I'm not conceited enough to suppose there aren't a dozen men in the auto industry in Detroit who could step into my desk and carry this thing forward," he confessed with perhaps a greater humility than he felt. "I flatter myself that in spite of the year's reverses I've got the business to that point. But," and he became suddenly bold and assertive, "I don't know where these men are. I do know where I am. I'm in the saddle out there now, and I've got everything at my finger's end."

"That's just why I wouldn't stand for any change in the management out there now," broke out Tompkins flatly.

A knot of perplexity appeared in the young man's brow. Change of control—no change in management. "You are talking in riddles," he said with a weak smile.

"Not at all. You're president of Judson-Morris, and you've got to stay president," affirmed Silas Haley.

"You see, George," Mr. Blodgett suavely began to explain, "if you were to transfer fifteen per cent. of your stock to us, five per cent to each of us, then you would still control the com-