He took a wad of tobacco from his pocket, eyed it timidly, and after glancing at the tiled hearth, put it back again.
"You know what I would do if I were a rich man, Benjy?" he said; "I'd buy a railroad."
"You'd have to be a very rich man, indeed, to do that."
"It's a little dead-beat road, the West Virginia and Wyanoke. I overheard two gentlemen talking about it yesterday in Pocahontas, and one of 'em had been down to look at those worked-out coal fields at Wyanoke. 'If I wa'nt in as many schemes as I could float, I'd buy up a control of that road,' said the one who had been there, 'you mark my words, there's better coal in those fields than has ever come out of 'em.' They called him Huntley, and he said he'd been down with an expert."
"Huntley?" I caught at the name, for he was one of the shrewdest promoters in the South. "If he thinks that, why didn't he get control of the road himself?"
"The other wanted him to. He said the time would come when they tapped the coal fields that the Great South Midland and Atlantic would want the little road as a feeder."
"So he believed the Wyanoke coal fields weren't worked out, eh?"
"He said they wa'nt even developed. You see it was all a secret, and they didn't pay any attention to me, because I was just a common miner."
"And couldn't buy a railroad. Well, President, if it comes to anything, you shall have your share. Meanwhile, I'll run out to Wyanoke and look around."
With the idea still in my mind, I went into the General's office next day, and told him that I had decided to accept the presidency of the Union Bank.