As I said before, you've got to dig.
I run the majority stock, and it's come to a case of assess.
It's that or smash.
If ever I start going you won't know what struck you, I'll smash that hard.
The small fry can let go, but you big ones can't.
This ship won't sink as long as you stay with her.
But if you start to leave her, down you'll sure go before you can get to shore.
This assessment has got to be met that's all."
The big wholesale supply houses, the caterers for his hotels, and all the crowd that incessantly demanded to be paid, had their hot half-hours with him.
He summoned them to his office and displayed his latest patterns of can and can't and will and won't.
"By God, you've got to carry me!" he told them.
"If you think this is a pleasant little game of parlor whist and that you can quit and go home whenever you want, you're plumb wrong.
Look here, Watkins, you remarked five minutes ago that you wouldn't stand for it.
Now let me tell you a few. You're going to stand for it and keep on standin's for it.
You're going to continue supplying me and taking my paper until the pinch is over.
How you're going to do it is your trouble, not mine.
You remember what I did to Klinkner and the Altamont Trust Company?
I know the inside of your business better than you do yourself, and if you try to drop me I'll smash you.
Even if I'd be going to smash myself, I'd find a minute to turn on you and bring you down with me.
It's sink or swim for all of us, and I reckon you'll find it to your interest to keep me on top the puddle."
Perhaps his bitterest fight was with the stockholders of the United Water Company, for it was practically the whole of the gross earnings of this company that he voted to lend to himself and used to bolster up his wide battle front.
Yet he never pushed his arbitrary rule too far. Compelling sacrifice from the men whose fortunes were tied up with his, nevertheless when any one of them was driven to the wall and was in dire need, Daylight was there to help him back into the line.
Only a strong man could have saved so complicated a situation in such time of stress, and Daylight was that man.
He turned and twisted, schemed and devised, bludgeoned and bullied the weaker ones, kept the faint-hearted in the fight, and had no mercy on the deserter.
And in the end, when early summer was on, everything began to mend.
Came a day when Daylight did the unprecedented. He left the office an hour earlier than usual, and for the reason that for the first time since the panic there was not an item of work waiting to be done.
He dropped into Hegan's private office, before leaving, for a chat, and as he stood up to go, he said:—
"Hegan, we're all hunkadory.
We're pulling out of the financial pawnshop in fine shape, and we'll get out without leaving one unredeemed pledge behind.
The worst is over, and the end is in sight.
Just a tight rein for a couple more weeks, just a bit of a pinch or a flurry or so now and then, and we can let go and spit on our hands."
For once he varied his program. Instead of going directly to his hotel, he started on a round of the bars and cafes, drinking a cocktail here and a cocktail there, and two or three when he encountered men he knew.
It was after an hour or so of this that he dropped into the bar of the Parthenon for one last drink before going to dinner.
By this time all his being was pleasantly warmed by the alcohol, and he was in the most genial and best of spirits.
At the corner of the bar several young men were up to the old trick of resting their elbows and attempting to force each other's hands down.
One broad-shouldered young giant never removed his elbow, but put down every hand that came against him.
Daylight was interested.
"It's Slosson," the barkeeper told him, in answer to his query.
"He's the heavy-hammer thrower at the U.C.
Broke all records this year, and the world's record on top of it.
He's a husky all right all right."
Daylight nodded and went over to him, placing his own arm in opposition.
"I'd like to go you a flutter, son, on that proposition," he said.
The young man laughed and locked hands with him; and to Daylight's astonishment it was his own hand that was forced down on the bar.
"Hold on," he muttered.
"Just one more flutter.
I reckon I wasn't just ready that time."
Again the hands locked.
It happened quickly.
The offensive attack of Daylight's muscles slipped instantly into defense, and, resisting vainly, his hand was forced over and down.