A. I didn't mean that.
Q. Then in your business you are not very accurate. You say one thing and mean another.
A. No, sir; we may have more sense than you think we have. We spend a lifetime at this business and must learn something about it.
Q. Will you please tell this fair-minded commission just how you run the road, just how you attempt to minister to the needs of the intelligent people of this great commonwealth?
A. Now, sir, it is a pleasure to testify. You are getting away from definitions and technicalities and down to practical facts, where I feel more at home. I will be glad to tell you all about it. In the first place a railway is such a big affair that we divide it into departments.
Q. Excuse me, what is a department?
A. A department is—well—I can make it clearer by describing what it does. As I was saying, we divided it into departments, and a department is—well—a department is—why, something so different from everything else that we put it off by itself and hold the head of the department responsible for results. We are very particular not to interfere with the details of the departments.
Q. Pardon me, but the present members of this exceptionally able commission, inspired further I may say by the example of our patriotic governor, are accustomed to give profound consideration to these great questions. (Modest pricking up of ears of commission, with determined composite expression bespeaking relentless performance of a dangerous duty.) Please, therefore, tell us what your department does.
A. As I testified on the direct examination mine is the operating department; as general manager I have charge of operation.
Q. What does that include?