Disregard of this rule involved not only Mr.Kloman himself, but our company, in peril, coming, as it did, atop of the difficulties of my Texas Pacific friends with whom I had been intimately associated.

The question for a time was whether there was anything really sound.

Where could we find bedrock upon which we could stand?
Had Mr.Kloman been a business man it would have been impossible ever to allow him to be a partner with us again after this discovery.

He was not such, however, but the ablest of practical mechanics with some business ability.

Mr.Kloman's ambition had been to be in the office, where he was worse than useless, rather than in the mill devising and running new machinery, where he was without a peer.