"The value of him to you," Dillon said, "is that if you can only make him talk you'll find him a born storyteller. The secret scandal of his life is that once in a short vacation he tried to write a play."
It was weeks before he would see me, and I had my first interview at last only by getting on a night train which he had taken for Cleveland. There in his stateroom, cornered, he received me with a grim reluctance. And with a humorous glint in his eyes,
"How much do you know about banking?" he asked.
"Nothing," I said frankly. And then I took a sudden chance. "What do you know about writing?" I asked.
"Nothing," he said placidly.
"Is that true? I thought you once wrote a play." He sat up very quickly. "If you did," I went on, "you've probably read some of Shakespeare's stuff. It was strong stuff about strong men. If he were alive he'd write about you, but I'm sure that he wouldn't know about banking. That's only your job."
"What do you want of me, young man?" he inquired. "Is it my soul?"
"Not at all," I answered. "It's the America you know, expressed in such simple human terms that even a young ignoramus like me will be able to understand it. Out of this big country a good many thousands of men, I suppose, have come to you for money. Which are the most significant ones?"
And I went on to explain my idea. Soon it began to take hold of him. We talked until after midnight, and later we had other talks. It was hard at first in the questioning to dodge the technical side of it all, the widely intricate workings of that machine of credit of which he was chief engineer. But as he saw how eager I was to feel his view and become enthused, by degrees he humanized it all. And not only that, he trusted me, he gave me the most intimate glimpses into this life of big money, although when I dared to include such bits in the story that I showed him he calmly scratched them out and said:
"You're mistaken, young man. I didn't say that."