He was disappointed, for a moment. She seemed almost unimpressed. In reality, she was struggling to comprehend what he had just said to her. It was so incredibly huge in its proportions, so gigantic, so extravagantly far reaching that she had only words in her ears. He must be speaking in hyperbole.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“It is difficult to grasp,” he admitted. “When I first conceived of it, in answer to your why, I could not myself comprehend any more than that I had thought of an absurdity, like the lover who wished that the sea were ink and the land a pen that he might seize it, and write across the sky ‘I love you!’ It was as fantastic as that in my mind, at first, and in order to reduce the idea to actual thought, I had to break it into fragments; and that is the way I set about my campaign.”
Gail was listening eagerly now. She was beginning to dimly comprehend that Allison had actually wrought a miracle of commerce, probably the most stupendous in this entire century of commercial miracles; and her admiration of him grew. She had always admired great force, great strength, great power, and here, unfolding before her, was the evidence of it at its zenith.
“Let me build it up, step by step, for you. Incidentally, I’ll give you some confidential news which you will be reading in months to come. I hope,” and he laughed, “that you will not tell your friends the reporters about it.”
“Cross my heart, I won’t,” she gaily replied. The sting of her one big newspaper experience had begun to die away.
“When you asked me why, I was trying to secure Vedder Court for a terminal station for my city traction lines. Vedder Court quickly became, in my imagination, the terminal point not only of the city traction lines, but of the world’s transportation. From that I would run a railroad tube to the mainland, so that I could land passengers, not only in the heart of New York, but at the platforms of every street car and L and subway train.”
“How wonderful!” exclaimed Gail, in enthusiasm. This was an idea she could grasp. “And have you secured Vedder Court?”
“It’s a matter of days,” he returned carelessly. “The next step was the transcontinental line. I built it up, piece by piece, and to-day, under my own personal control, with sufficient stock to elect my own directors, who will jump when I crack the whip, I possess a railroad line from the Atlantic to the Pacific so direct, so straight, and so allied with ninety-five per cent. of the freight interests of the United States that, within two years, there will not be a car wheel turning in America which does not do so at the command of the A.-P. Railroad. That is the first step leading out of Vedder Court. The news of that consolidation will be in to-morrow morning’s papers, and from that minute on, the water will begin to drip from railroad stocks.”
“How about Uncle Jim’s road?” Gail suddenly interrupted.