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Supper at the Diversity House surprised Jim Ashe so much that it almost ruined his appetite. He had expected the food to match the general efficiency of the place, and had vaguely figured on the possibility of dining on crackers and cheese. This teaches us that, whereas man judges from the outward appearance, he should wait till he sees what comes out of the kitchen. It was the sort of meal you might expect to eat in a prosperous farm-house—plentiful, well cooked, and topped by apple pie that made Jim wish he had started with dessert, continued with dessert, and ended up with a final helping of it. There are few things in this world more delightful than a splendid meal that takes you by surprise.

He went out to sit on the porch, cool now with the evening breeze off Lake Michigan. Sitting with his back against a post, and looking as if he had not shifted his position since Jim saw him early in the afternoon, was the gentleman of the white socks and calico shirt. He did not look up as Jim passed to take a chair at the end of the piazza.

Presently there drew up before the hotel a ramshackle buggy drawn by an animal that was undoubtedly still a horse. It was a very Methuselah among horses. The old man who rode in the buggy appeared comparatively youthful beside it. Jim smiled at the turnout, then frowned a trifle, for the old man was the same individual who had rebuffed him so bruskly at the depot.

“Hey!” called the old gentleman, without straightening himself from the amazing position in which he sat. “Hey, Dolf—Dolf Springer!”

“Eh?” the gentleman in the white socks grunted, sitting erect and gazing about him owlishly.

“Was you at the depot to see the six-o’clock come in, Dolf? Eh?”

“Calc’lated to be.”

“Anybody git off, Dolf? Anybody special?”

“Lafe Jenks and his wife, Mandy Williams, Tom Sweet, two travelin’-men—”

“Anybody special, Dolf? Eh?”

“Well, last to git down was Michael Moran, Judge.”

“Um! What become of him, Dolf? Happen to notice?”

“In there eatin’ his supper.”

“Calc’late to be here long, Dolf?”

“Quite a spell, Judge.”

“Calc’late to be here till Moran comes out?”

“I could.”

“Um! Figger on speakin’ to him, Dolf?”

“Did think I might.”

“What was you goin’ to speak about? The weather? Eh?”

“Not’s I know of, Judge.”

“Was you goin’ to mention me? Eh? Figger on alludin’ to me?”

“Thought some of it.”

“As how, Dolf?”

“Thought I might mention you was askin’ after him.”

“Um! Goin’ to tell him where I was headin’ for? Eh? Think of doin’ that?”

“Figgered I’d mention you was to your office.”

“G’-by, Dolf.”

“G’-by, Judge.”

The old man clucked to his horse: “Giddap, Tiffany! G’long there! Time’s passin’ rapid for both of us. Don’t waste none of it. G’long!” The equipage drew slowly away from the hotel and proceeded down the street at a rate of speed which came close to being no movement at all, until it came to a halt again before a frame building at the end of the block. Here the old man alighted, hitched his horse as carefully as if the animal were a two-year-old showing signs of a desire to bolt. Then he went inside.

In ten minutes a man of middle age, not at all the Diversity type of citizen, appeared in the doorway. He was below medium height, sturdily built, with a face of the aggressive-business-man variety. Dolf Springer uncoiled by a mighty effort and rose to his feet.

“Howdy, Mr. Moran!” he said.

Mr. Moran nodded curtly.

“Zaanan’s to his office. He wants to see you over there.”

Mr. Moran nodded again and walked briskly down the street to the building before which stood the ancient horse and vehicle. He had wasted no time obeying the summons, and Jim wondered somewhat, for Michael Moran did not appear to him a man who was accustomed to run about at the beck and call of old men in dilapidated buggies. He seemed rather a person used to issuing orders and to exacting prompt obedience.

He was curious, too, about the old man himself, who, without uttering a word that could be construed by a court of law as expressing his wishes in the matter, had, nevertheless, directed Dolf Springer to waylay Mr. Moran and give him a message. The old man’s method was a splendid example of caution. It delighted Jim and aroused his curiosity as to the name and place in the world of the old fellow.

He made inquiries of a fellow-lounger on the piazza:

“Who is the old gentleman who drives a horse named Tiffany—”

“Who? Hain’t been in Diversity township much, have you? Guess not. That there’s Zaanan Frame, justice of the peace. Been it nigh to thirty year, and like to be it thirty year more.”

This was meager enough information, but Jim’s informant seemed to think it ample, for he relapsed into somnolent silence.

Jim was just rising with the intention of taking a walk—that seeming to be the sole entertainment offered by Diversity—when another buggy, dust-covered, drawn by a team, stopped before the hotel, and a small, wiry, exceedingly well-tailored old gentleman, with white whiskers of the bank-president type, alighted. He got down jauntily, springily, pertly, and trotted up the steps.

“Mr. Ashe—Mr. James Ashe, Junior. Can anybody direct me to him?”

“I am Mr. Ashe,” said Jim, stepping forward.

“Delighted to meet you, young man.” The dapper little gentleman stood off at arm’s-length to appraise him. “Don’t favor your daddy much. Foot longer and two feet narrower.” He chuckled gaily. “My name’s Welliver—Morton J. Welliver. Bet you’ve heard of me, eh? Bet you’ve heard daddy mention me once or twice.”

“Of course. Your name, with Mr. Jenkins’s and Mr. Plum’s and Mr. Mannikin’s, is pretty average familiar to me. I hope everything is satisfactory at your plant.”

“Satisfactory? My boy, the Brockville Hardwood Company is booming. Now’s the day for the clothespin man. We’re at the top of the heap. Prices up, competition down, market hungry. But what’s this I hear about daddy? Wired him I wanted to see him on clothespin business. He wired back: ‘Out of the game. Son owns plant—lock, stock, and barrel. Tell it to him.’ Now, what’s that mean?”

“Just what it says, I expect. Father has gone to California with mother. The plant’s mine.”

“Clothespin Jimmy quit! Can’t believe it. Thought he’d die with one foot on a maple log and a clothespin in each hand. Well! Well! So you and I have to talk business, eh?”

“If there’s any to talk,” said Jim.

“I reckon there’s some—some. Where’ll we go to do it?”

“We might walk out a piece and sit on a fence,” said Jim, with a grin. “It’ll be more comfortable, and we can argue and swing our arms better.”

“Good enough. Which way?”

They walked along, Welliver doing most of the conversing. Indeed, it was Mr. Welliver’s habit to do most of the conversing. He owned a great many words and was willing to part with them freely—but not unwisely. It was said by men in the business that Mr. Welliver could keep you entertained for an evening and not utter a word of what was on his mind. Clothespin Jimmy once told him he was like the what-d’ye-call-’em fish that squirted out a cloud of ink and then hid in it.

“Guess we can stop here,” said Jim when they arrived at a spot overlooking the flat on which the new mills were rising. “That’s the plant below.”

“Um! Some bigger than the old one, eh? What’s the idea? Going to take all the business away from us old fellows?”

“I guess you and Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Plum and Mr. Mannikin can look after your share, if all I’ve heard is true.”

“We can try. We can try. And that, my boy, is the very reason I’m here. I’m told you’re putting in six more clothespin machines than you had in the old plant.”

Jim nodded.

“That means about one hundred and twenty-five thousand additional five-gross boxes going on to the market.”

“So father says.”

“Well, son, the Club don’t look on that with a favorable eye. Of course you know the Club?”

“Clothespin Club? I know we’re members of it with seven other mills.”

“But do you know what it has done for the business? How it has taken a scramble of unprofitable competition and turned it into a smooth-running machine?”

“Something about it.”

“The Club meets—socially, of course, and nothing to interest the Sherman Law fellows. But we sort of talk things over friendly, and somebody quotes a price on clothespins, and another fellow says that sounds like a fair price, and they talk over market conditions and go home. But they all stick to the price mentioned. The last price was up-top, and we’re all making hay. But we don’t want anything to disturb the market.”

“Um!” said Jim, who was beginning to glean a hint of Mr. Welliver’s object.

“Conditions are about right now. Any increase in output will—unsettle matters.”

Jim remained silent.

“So,” said Mr. Welliver in his most friendly way, “the Club had a little meeting—”

“Part of it,” interjected Jim.

“All but you,” said Mr. Welliver. “Yes, we met casually, and talked it over, and here I am to advise you against adding those extra machines.”

“You’re a bit late,” said Jim. “They’re added.”

“But you might find it more profitable not to operate them. More money can be made with twelve machines at present prices than with eighteen and four or five tens lopped off.”

“Very possibly.”

“Well?”

Jim understood then. Mr. Welliver’s last observation had not been an observation at all—it had been a threat.

“You mean you’ll cut prices if I go ahead?” He paused a moment. “You got together and decided the Ashe Clothespin Company had bitten off all it could chew, and this was a good time to sort of help us run our business, eh?”

“We know how much you’ve put into these mills. We know your daddy built them on the strength of high prices, and we know that a drop in prices will give you something to think about.”

“And your ultimatum is: Either we drop our six new machines or you drop prices. Is that the idea?”

“Something very like it.”

Jim got to his feet and stood over the dapper little man. He looked large in the moonlight and Mr. Welliver became uneasy in his mind. He contemplated with negligible pleasure the idea of this big young man’s losing his temper and rumpling him all up. But Jim had no such idea.

“Mr. Welliver,” he said, “father gave me this business and told me to run it. He didn’t tell me to let the Club run it—and I’m not going to. You’ve come here threatening me, and somehow I don’t take to the idea of it. I know where I’m at and pretty much what I’m up against, but just the same I’m the Ashe Clothespin Company, and I’ll keep on being it as long as there’s a company. I’ll run twelve machines or eighteen or fifty, as I think it’s wise, and if the Club doesn’t like it, why the Club can be just as peevish as it wants to. I’ve never been in a good fight yet. You seem to want to get into one, and I’ll accommodate you for all I’ve got. Now, then, here’s my proposition to the Club: It can go on and run its own affairs and leave me alone—or it can start a row. You can make your choice now. What is it?”

“We can’t allow you to run those extra machines.”

“It’s war, then?”

“I hope not that, but we’ll have to point out to you that one mill can’t upset the whole industry.”

“And I’ll point out to you that this mill can do as it everlastingly pleases. Let’s go back to the hotel. Is it shake hands or fight?”

“I’m afraid it’ll have to be fight.”

“Then,” Jim said—and all of a sudden he felt grimly glad, and a grimly glad smile lighted his face “then I guess I’ll fire the first shot. Our inventory shows we’ve got fifty thousand boxes in the old warehouse. They go on the market to-morrow at five tens off the present price—and if that doesn’t suit you I’ll cut off another ten or so.”

“But—but, my boy, you’re crazy. You’ll lose money on every box you sell.”

“So will you—and you’ve got more to sell than I have just now. You can watch me send the telegram,” Jim said.

“Young man, you’re a bit sudden,” said Mr. Welliver.

“I may be sudden, sir, but you’ll find I’m lasting, too. When this ruction calms down one of two things will have happened: I’ll be busted or the Club will have learned to stick to the purpose for which it was formed.”

He turned and strode off toward the hotel, with Mr. Welliver trotting at his heels, uttering bleating sounds of protest. As they neared the piazza, he said, pantingly: “Suppose we talk some more. Maybe we can hit on a compromise.”

“The only compromise you can hit on is to keep your hands off.”

Mr. Welliver shrugged his shoulders.

“Good night, young man. I’m afraid you’re going to be very sorry for this. Your father had more—discretion.”

“My father’s backbone reached from the base of his skull to the seat of his pants,” said Jim, “and every inch of it was stiff. Good night, Mr. Welliver.”

Inside he procured a telegraph blank and wrote a brief message to the bookkeeper at the old office: