Blow the Man Down - A Romance of the Coast

"That's my own business," said Fletcher Fogg.

"You can't get away with it--you can't do it!" raged Vose. "I'll get

at the inside of how that meeting was conducted. You'd better take

backwater right now, Fogg, and save yourself. I'm not afraid to tell

you what I'm going to do. I'll have a temporary injunction issued. I'll

prove fraud was used at that meeting--bribery, yes, sir!"

Mr. Fogg smiled and sat down at the president's desk. "First he'll have

to find a young man by the name of David Boyne," he told himself.

"Vose," said the new president, "all you can show a court is the record

of an annual meeting, duly and legally held. And if the judge wants to

have a look at me he'll find me running this line a blamed sight better

than you have ever run it."

"It's a cheap, plain trick," bleated the aged steamship manager. "Your

crowd is going to sell out to the Paramount--it's your plot."

"Oh no! We're not inviting injunctions and law and newspaper talk and

slurs and slander, Mr. Vose. If there's ever any selling out you'll be

the first to suggest it; I never shall. You see, I'm just as frank with

you as you are with me. Selling this line to the Paramount right now,

just because the new board is in, would be ragged work--very coarse

work. Thank Heaven, I have a proper respect for the law--and what it can

do to bother a fool. I am not a fool, Mr. Vose."