The Titan [125]
"Why should I sell? The building is a good building. It's as useful to me as it would be to you. I'm making money out of it."
"Quite true," replied Cowperwood, "but I am willing to pay you a fair price for it. A public utility is involved. This tunnel will be a good thing for the West Side and any other land you may own over there. With what I will pay you you can buy more land in that neighborhood or elsewhere, and make a good thing out of it. We need to put this tunnel just where it is, or I wouldn't trouble to argue with you.
"That's just it," replied Purdy, fixedly. "You've gone ahead and dug your tunnel without consulting me, and now you expect me to get out of the way. Well, I don't see that I'm called on to get out of there just to please you."
"But I'll pay you a fair price."
"How much will you pay me?"
"How much do you want?"
Mr. Purdy scratched a fox-like ear. "One million dollars."
"One million dollars!" exclaimed Cowperwood. "Don't you think that's a little steep, Mr. Purdy?"
"No," replied Purdy, sagely. "It's not any more than it's worth."
Cowperwood sighed.
"I'm sorry," he replied, meditatively, "but this is really too much. Wouldn't you take three hundred thousand dollars in cash now and consider this thing closed?"
"One million," replied Purdy, looking sternly at the ceiling. "Very well, Mr. Purdy," replied Cowperwood. "I'm very sorry. It's plain to me that we can't do business as I had hoped. I'm willing to pay you a reasonable sum; but what you ask is far too much--preposterous! Don't you think you'd better reconsider? We might move the tunnel even yet."
"One million dollars," said Purdy.
"It can't be done, Mr. Purdy. It isn't worth it. Why won't you be fair? Call it three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars cash, and my check to-night."
"I wouldn't take five or six hundred thousand dollars if you were to offer it to me, Mr. Cowperwood, to-night or any other time. I know my rights."
"Very well, then," replied Cowperwood, "that's all I can say. If you won't sell, you won't sell. Perhaps you'll change your mind later."
Mr. Purdy went out, and Cowperwood called in his lawyers and his engineers. One Saturday afternoon, a week or two later, when the building in question had been vacated for the day, a company of three hundred laborers, with wagons, picks, shovels, and dynamite sticks, arrived. By sundown of the next day (which, being Sunday, was a legal holiday, with no courts open or sitting to issue injunctions) this comely structure, the private property of Mr. Redmond Purdy, was completely razed and a large excavation substituted in its stead. The gentleman of the celluloid cuffs and collars, when informed about nine o'clock of this same Sunday morning that his building had been almost completely removed, was naturally greatly perturbed. A portion of the wall was still standing when he arrived, hot and excited, and the police were appealed to.
But, strange to say, this was of little avail, for they were shown a writ of injunction issued by the court of highest jurisdiction, presided over by the Hon. Nahum Dickensheets, which restrained all and sundry from interfering. (Subsequently on demand of another court this remarkable document was discovered to have disappeared; the contention was that it had never really existed or been produced at all.)
The demolition and digging proceeded. Then began a scurrying of lawyers to the door of one friendly judge after another. There were apoplectic cheeks, blazing eyes, and gasps for breath while the enormity of the offense was being noised abroad. Law is law, however. Procedure is procedure, and no writ of injunction was either issuable or returnable on a legal holiday, when no courts were sitting. Nevertheless, by three o'clock in the afternoon an obliging magistrate was found who consented to issue an injunction staying this terrible crime. By this time, however, the building was gone, the excavation complete. It remained merely for the West Chicago Street Railway Company to