Читать книгу Oil! - Upton Sinclair - Страница 14

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It was seven-thirty, the hour set for the meeting; and everybody looked about, waiting for somebody else to begin. At last a stranger rose, a big six-footer with a slow drawl, introducing himself as Mr. F. T. Merriweather, attorney for Mr. and Mrs. Black, owners of the southwest corner; by his advice, these parties wished to request a slight change in the wording of the lease.

“Changes in the lease?” It was the hatchet-faced Mr. Hank who leaped up. “I thought it was agreed we’d make no more changes?”

“This is a very small matter, sir—”

“But Mr. Ross is to be here in fifteen minutes, ready to sign up!”

“This is a detail, which can be changed in five minutes.”

There was an ominous silence. “Well, what is your change?”

“Merely this,” said Mr. Merriweather; “it should be explicitly stated that in figuring the area for the apportioning of the royalty, due regard shall be paid to the provision of the law that oil rights run to the centre of the street, and to the centre of the alley in the rear.”

“What’s that?” Eyes and mouths went open, and there was a general murmur of amazement and dissent. “Where do you get that?” cried Mr. Hank.

“I get it from the statutes of the State of California.”

“Well, you don’t get it from this lease, and you don’t get it from me!” There was a chorus of support: “I should think not! Whoever heard of such a thing? Ridiculous!”

“I think I speak for the majority here,” said old Mr. Bromley. “We had no such understanding; we assumed that the area of the lots to be taken was that given on the maps of the company.”

“Certainly, certainly!” cried Mrs. Groarty.

“I think, Mrs. Groarty,” replied Mr. Dibble, the lawyer, “there has been an unfortunate accident, owing to your unfamiliarity with the oil-laws of the State. The provisions of the statute are clear.”

“Oh, yes, of course!” snapped Mrs. Groarty. “We don’t need to be told what you would say, seeing as you represent a corner lot, and the corner lots will get twice as much money!”

“Not so bad as that, Mrs. Groarty. Don’t forget that your own lot will run to the centre of Las Robles Boulevard, which is eighty feet wide.”

“Yes, but your lot will run to the centre of the side street also—”

“Yes, Mrs. Groarty, but El Centro Avenue is only sixty feet wide.”

“What it means is just this, you make your lots ninety-five feet lots, instead of sixty-five feet lots, as we all thought when we give up and consented to let the big lots have a bigger share.”

“And you were going to let us sign that!” shouted Mr. Hank. “You were sitting still and working that swindle on us!”

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” boomed the voice of Mr. Golighty, the conciliator.

“Let me git this straight,” broke in Abe Lohlker, the tailor. “Eldorado Road ain’t so wide as Los Robles Boulevard, so us fellers on the east half don’t git so much money as the others.”

“That amounts to practically nothing,” said Mr. Merriweather. “You can figure—”

“Sure I can figger! But then, if it don’t amount to nothin’, what you comin’ here bustin’ up our lease about it for?”

“I can tell you this right now!” cried Mr. Hank. “You’ll never get me to sign no such agreement.”

“Nor me,” said Miss Snypp, the trained nurse, a decided young lady with spectacles. “I think us little lots have put up with our share of imposition.”

“What I say,” added Mr. Hank, “let’s go back to the original agreement, the only sensible one, share and share alike, all lots equal, same as we vote.”

“Let me point out something, Mr. Hank,” said Mr. Dibble, with much dignity. “Am I correct in the impression that you own one of the little lots adjoining the alley?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, then, have you figured that the law entitles you to an extra fifteen feet all along that alley? That puts you somewhat ahead of the medium lots.”

Mr. Hank’s lantern jaw dropped down. “Oh!” he said.

And Mrs. Groarty burst into laughter. “Oh! Oh! That changes it, of course! It’s us medium lots that are the suckers now—us that make up half the lease!”

“And us little lots that ain’t on the alley!” cried Mrs. Keith, the wife of a baseball player. “What about my husband and I?”

“It looks to me we’re clean busted up,” said Mr. Sahm, the plasterer. “We don’t know who we belong with no more.” Like most of the men in the room, he had got out a pencil and paper, and was trying to figure this new arrangement; and the more he figured, the more complications he discovered.