He was heard to denounce the
fellow as "a thief and a robber!" and to make a vicious threat
concerning his license.
Bean was face to face with Ram-tah, demanding whatever strength might
flow to him from that august personage. A crisis had come. Either he was
a king, or he was not a king. If a king, he must do as kings would do.
If not a king, he would doubtless behave like a rabbit.
But strength flowed to him as always from that calm, strong face. In
Ram-tah's presence he could believe no weakness of himself. Put him in
jail, would they? A man who had not only once ruled a mighty people in
peace, but who had, some hundreds of centuries later, made Europe
tremble under the tread of his victorious armies. Ram-tah had been no
fighter--but Napoleon! He, Bunker Bean, was a wise king, yet a mighty
warrior. Beat him down, would they? Merely because he wanted to become a
director in their company! Well, they would find out who they were
trying to keep off that Board. What if they did put him in jail? A good
lawyer would get him out in a few minutes with a writ of something or
other, a stay of proceedings, a demurrer, a legal technicality. He read
the papers. Lawyers were always getting Wall Street speculators out of
jail by some one of those devices; and if every other means failed a
legal technicality did the work. And the papers always called the
released man a Napoleon of Finance.
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