Peters's laugh was a cackle. "You're the traffic man of this outfit: do you know the rates on coal from the mines to Western Central common points?"
"Of course I do."
"Got 'em all down in the printed tariff, so you can't help knowing 'em, eh? Consolidated Coal pays these rates, doesn't it?—all according to Hoyle and the Interstate Commerce laws?"
"I suppose we pay them. I check the bills as they are presented."
"Exactly. But every little so-while you have to make a whaling big claim on the railroad company for overcharges, and maybe you've noticed that these claims are always paid—or maybe you haven't?"
I was beginning to see the hole in the millstone.
"I make the claims on the weights as you give them to me, Peters. Do you mean to tell me that you've been giving me false figures?"
The yard clerk stuck his tongue in his cheek. "I'm not telling you anything. You know as well as I do that it's against the law to give or receive rebates. But if you're not a heap greener than you look, you know that we're getting our cut rates, just the same. All we need is a man right here at your desk who has the nerve to make out the claims, and is fly enough to do a little bluffing and ask no questions. You're all right, Bertie."
"But the figures of the weights," I insisted. "You are the man who gives them to me, and you are responsible if they are wrong."
"Not in a thousand years!" was the prompt retort. "I never put anything on paper—you're the man that does that—and if the Interstate Commerce people should break in, I'd have the best little forgettery of any clock-watcher in the works. Nix for me, Weyburn; you are the chap with the figures, and the only man in the shop who has them down in black on white. When the roar comes, it'll be up to you, and Mullins will throw up his hands and accuse you of having a private graft of some sort with the railroad clerks in the claim office. That's about what he'll do."