He had not reached mahogany before the thwarted shareholder had started up.
“Mr. Botterill,” said the Chairman.
Michael saw a lean and narrow head, with two hollows in a hairy neck, above a back slightly bent forward, as of a doctor listening to a chest.
“I take it from you, then, sir,” he said, “that these two directors represent the general attitude of the Board, and that the Board were content to allow a suspected person to remain manager. The gentleman on your extreme left—Mr. Forsyte, I think—spoke of an accidental incident. But for that, apparently, we should still be in the hands of an unscrupulous individual. The symptoms in this case are very disquieting. There appears to have been gross over-confidence; a recent instance of the sort must be in all our minds. The policy of assuring foreign business was evidently initiated by the manager for his own ends. We have made a severe loss by it. And the question for us shareholders would seem to be whether a Board who placed confidence in such a person, and continued it after their suspicions were aroused, are the right people to direct this important concern.”
Throughout this speech Michael had grown very hot. ‘“Old Forsyte” was right,’ he thought; ‘they’re on their uppers after all.’
There was a sudden creak from his neighbour on the left.
“Mr. Tolby,” said the Chairman.
“It’s a seerious matter, this, gentlemen. I propose that the Board withdraw, an’ leave us to discuss it.”
“I second that,” said Michael’s neighbour on the right.
Searching the vista of the Board, Michael saw recognition gleam for a second in the lonely face at the end, and grinned a greeting.
The Chairman was speaking.
“If that is your wish, gentlemen, we shall be happy to comply with it. Will those who favour the motion hold up their hands?”
All hands were held up, with the exception of Michael’s, of two women whose eager colloquy had not permitted them to hear the request, and of one shareholder, just in front of Michael, so motionless that he seemed to be dead.
“Carried,” said the Chairman, and rose from his seat.
Michael saw his father smiling, and speaking to ‘Old Forsyte’ as they both stood up. They all filed out, and the door was closed.
‘Whatever happens,’ Michael thought, ‘I’ve got to keep my head shut, or I shall be dropping a brick.’
“Perhaps the Press will kindly withdraw, too,” he heard some one say.
With a general chinny movement, as if enquiring their rights of no one in particular, the four Pressmen could be seen to clasp their notebooks. When their pale reluctance had vanished, there was a stir among the shareholders, like that of ducks when a dog comes up behind. Michael saw why, at once. They had their backs to each other. A shareholder said:
“Perhaps Mr. Tolby, who proposed the withdrawal, will act as Chairman.”
Michael’s left-hand neighbour began breathing heavily.
“Right-o!” he said. “Any one who wants to speak, kindly ketch my eye.”
Everyone now began talking to his neighbour, as though to get at once a quiet sense of proportion, before speaking. Mr. Tolby was breathing so heavily that Michael felt a positive draught.
“‘Ere, gentlemen,” he said suddenly, “this won’t do! We don’t want to be too formal, but we must preserve some order. I’ll open the discussion myself. Now, I didn’t want to ‘urt the feelin’s of the Board by plain speakin’ in their presence. But, as Mr. What’s-‘is-name there, said: The public ‘as got to protect itself against sharpers, and against slackness. We all know what ‘appened the other day, and what’ll ‘appen again in other concerns, unless we shareholders look after ourselves. In the first place, then, what I say is: They ought never to ‘ave touched anything to do with the ‘Uns. In the second place, I say they showed bad judgment. And in the third place I say they were too thick together. In my opinion, we should propose a vote of no confidence.”
Cries of: “Hear, hear!” mixed with indeterminate sounds, were broken sharply by a loud: “No!” from the shareholder who had seemed dead. Michael’s heart went out to him, the more so as he still seemed dead. The negative was followed by the rising of a thin, polished-looking shareholder, with a small grey moustache.
“If you’ll forgive my saying so, sir,” he began, “your proposal seems to me very rough-and-ready justice. I should be interested to know how you would have handled such a situation if you had been on the Board. It is extremely easy to condemn other people!”
“Hear, hear!” said Michael, astonished at his own voice.
“It is all very well,” the polished shareholder went on, “when any thing of this sort happens, to blame a directorate, but, speaking as a director myself, I should be glad to know whom one is to trust, if not one’s manager. As to the policy of foreign insurance, it has been before us at two general meetings; and we have pocketed the profit from it for nearly two years. Have we raised a voice against it?”
The dead shareholder uttered a “No!” so loud that Michael almost patted his head.
The shareholder, whose neck and back were like a doctor’s, rose to answer.
“I differ from the last speaker in his diagnosis of the case. Let us admit all he says, and look at the thing more widely. The proof of pudding is in the eating. When a Government makes a bad mistake of judgment, the electorate turns against it as soon as it feels the effects. This is a very sound check on administration; it may be rough and ready, but it is the less of two evils. A Board backs its judgment; when it loses, it should pay. I think, perhaps, Mr. Tolby, being our informal Chairman, was out of order in proposing a vote of no confidence; if that be so, I should be happy to do so, myself.”
The dead shareholder’s “No!” was so resounding this time that there was a pause for him to speak; he remained, however, without motion. Both of Michael’s neighbours were on their feet. They bobbed at each other over Michael’s head, and Mr. Tolby sat down.
“Mr. Sawdry,” he said.
“Look ’ere, gentlemen,” said Mr. Sawdry, “and ladies, this seems to me a case for compromise. The Directors that knew about the manager ought to go; but we might stop at that. The gentleman in front of me keeps on saying ‘No.’ Let ’im give us ‘is views.”
“No,” said the dead shareholder, but less loudly.
“If a man can’t give ‘is views,” went on Mr. Sawdry, nearly sitting down on Michael, “‘c shouldn’t interrupt, in my opinion.”
A shareholder in the front row now turned completely round so that he faced the meeting.
“I think,” he said, “that to prolong this discussion is to waste time; we are evidently in two, if not three, minds. The whole of the business of this country is now conducted on a system of delegated trust; it may be good, it may be bad—but there it is. You’ve got to trust somebody. Now, as to this particular case, we’ve had no reason to distrust the Board, so far; and, as I take it, the Board had no previous reason to distrust the late manager. I think it’s going too far, at present, to propose anything definite like a vote of no confidence; it seems to me that we should call the Board in and hear what assurances they have to give us against a repetition of anything of the sort in the future.”
The sounds which greeted this moderate speech were so inextricable that Michael could not get the sense of them. Not so with the speech which followed. It came from a shareholder on the right, with reddish hair, light eyelashes, a clipped moustache, and a scraped colour.
“I have no objection whatever to having the Board in,” he said in a rather jeering voice, “and passing a vote of no confidence in their presence. There is a question, which no one has touched on, of how far, if we turn them out, we could make them liable for this loss. The matter is not clear, but there is a good sporting chance, if we like to take it. Whereas, if we don’t turn them out, it’s obvious we can’t take it, even if we wish.”