They passed a unanimous vote of the most complimentary confidence in Wade, approved of his system, forced upon him an increase of salary, and began to talk of “launching out” and doubling their capital. In short, they behaved as Directors do when all is serene.
Churm and Wade had a hearty laugh over the absurdities of the Board and all their vague propositions.
“Dunderbunk,” said Churm, “was a company started on a sentimental basis, as many others are.”
“Mr. Brummage fell in love with pig-iron?”
“Precisely. He had been a dry-goods jobber, risen from a retailer somewhere in the country. He felt a certain lack of dignity in his work. He wanted to deal in something more masculine than lace and ribbons. He read a sentimental article on Iron in the ‘Journal of Commerce’: how Iron held the world together; how it was nerve and sinew; how it was ductile and malleable and other things that sounded big; how without Iron civilization would stop, and New-Zealanders hunt rats among the ruins of London; how anybody who would make two tons of Iron grow where one grew before was a benefactor to the human race greater than Alexander, Cæsar, or Napoleon; and so on, — you know the eloquent style. Brummage’s soul was fired. He determined to be greater than the three heroes named. He was oozing with unoccupied capital. He went about among the other rich jobbers, with the newspaper
