"I was talking to a man from West Virginia yesterday about buying out the National Oil Company, and I dreamed of it all night. He wants me to go in with him, and start a refining plant. If I can get special privileges and rebates from the railroads to give us advantages, we may make a big business of it."
"You may and you mayn't. Who's your man?"
"Sam Brackett. Bob's brother, you know."
"A mighty good fellow, and shrewd, too. But I'd think it over carefully, if I were you."
I did think it over, and the result of my thoughts was, as I told the General a fortnight later, the purchase of a refining plant near Clarksburg, and the beginning of a lively war with the competitors in the business.
"We're going to sweep the South, General, with the help of the railroad," I said.
The great man, with his gouty foot in a felt slipper, sat gazing meditatively over the words of a telegram, which had come on his private wire.
"Midland stock is selling at 160," he said. "It's a big railroad, my boy, and I've made it."
Even to-day, with the living presence of Sally still in my eyes, I was filled again with the old unappeasable desire for the great railroad. The woman and the road were distinct and yet blended in my thoughts.
At dinner-time, when the General hobbled to his buggy on my arm, I made again the remark I had blurted out so inopportunely.