"Of course. The fellows that we're going to squeeze would
move heaven and hell to prevent our getting that Settlement,
if they got wind of what was going on. The only weak point
in our game is just there. Absolutely everything hangs
on the Settlement being granted. Naturally, then, our play
is to concentrate everything on getting it granted.
We don't want to raise the remotest shadow of a suspicion
of what we're up to, till after we're safe past that rock.
So we go on in the way to attract the least possible attention.
You or your jobber makes the ordinary application for a
Special Settlement, with your six signatures and so on;
and I go abroad quietly, and the office is as good as
shut up, and nobody makes a peep about Rubber Consols--
and the thing works itself. You do see it, don't you?"
"I see well enough the things that are to be seen,"
replied Semple, with a certain brevity of manner.
"There was a sermon of my father's that I remember, and it
had for its text, 'We look not at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen.'"
Thorpe, pondering this for a moment, nodded his head.
"Semple," he said, bringing his chair forward to the desk,
"that's what I've come for. I want to spread my cards on
the table for you. I know the sum you've laid out already,
in working this thing.
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