might have walked down town in a long patchwork toga made of the newspaper advertisements of boards in which his name proudly figured. If Dunderbunk failed, the toga was torn, and might presently go to rags beyond repair. The first rent would inaugurate universal rupture. How to avoid this disaster? — that was the question. “State the case, Mr. Superintendent Whiffler,” said President Brummage, in his pompous manner, with its pomp a little collapsed, pro tempore.
Inefficient Whiffler whimpered out his story.
The confessions of an impotent executive are sorry stuff to read. Whiffler’s long, dismal complaint shall not be repeated. He had taken a prosperous concern, had carried on things in his own way, and now failure was inevitable. He had bought raw material lavishly, and worked it badly into half-ripe material, which nobody wanted to buy. He was in arrears to his hands. He had tried to bully them, when they asked for their money. They had insulted him, and threatened to knock off work, unless they were paid at once. “A set of horrid ruffians,” Whiffler said, — “and his life wouldn’t be safe many days among them.”
“Withdraw, if you please, Mr. Superintendent,” President Brummage requested. “The Board will discuss measures of relief.”
The more they discussed, the more consternation. Nobody said anything to the purpose, except Mr. Sam Gwelp, his late father’s lubberly son and successor.
