Henry was feeling as if he were off his feet and beginning to be swept downstream. "You think, then, it was perfectly ethical to keep from the Indians the knowledge that oil underlaid their land?" he asked.
"Ethical?" It was an uncommon word to Mr. Boland as applied to business. He chewed on it for a moment, and then swallowed it vigorously. "Why, certainly! It was my knowledge, my information that oil was there; and information, my son—business information—is property, just like land—just like oil itself, or any other commodity. Every big business is built on information—business secrets, trade secrets, manufacturing secrets—information.
"I always knew about the oil slicks on Shell Point streams. So did everybody. But it was me that got Stanfield here, that paid him ten thousand dollars for thirty days of his time and promised him a royalty of two percent on the gross of a ten-year output, if he kept his mouth shut on what he found until I was ready to make it public."
But Henry had got his feet on bottom again for one swirling instant. "It was very shrewd, Mr. Boland, no doubt; but was it—right?"
"Right? Of course it was right. Why, Henry! I'm surprised at you. I'll have to give you some lessons in the fundamental principles of business."
"I guess you will," confessed Harrington rather grimly.
"All right, here goes," began his self-appointed school-master resolutely, wetting an aggressive lip: "You were born in Missouri, didn't you tell me? Northwest Missouri? Well, I was born just over the line in Iowa. Let me ask you now, did you ever, in the
