“Well, sir,” enumerated Ephraim carefully; “Mirandy had a chicken pot-pie for dinner, and then there’s—”
“That will do; cold,” interrupted Allison. “Bring it here with as few service things as possible, a bottle of Vichy and some olives.”
He began to set down some figures, and when Ephraim came, shaking his head to himself about such things as cold dumplings at night, Allison stopped for ten minutes, and lunched with apparent relish. At seven-thirty he called Ephraim and ordered a cold plunge and some breakfast. He had been up all night, and on the map of the United States there were pencilled two thin straight black lines; one from New York to Chicago, and one from Chicago to San Francisco. Crossing them, and paralleling them, and angling in their general direction, but quite close to them in the main, were lines of blue and lines of green and lines of orange; these three.
Another day and another night he spent with his maps, and his books, and his figures; then he went to his broker with a list of railroads.
“Get me what stock you can of these,” he directed. “Pick it up as quietly as possible.”
The broker looked them over and elevated his eyebrows, There was not a road in the list which was important strategically, but he had ceased to ask questions of Edward Allison.
Three days later, Allison went into the annual stockholders’ meeting of the L. and C. Railroad, and registered majority of the stock in that insignificant line, which ran up the shore opposite Crescent Island, joined the Towando Valley shortly after its emergence from its hired entrance into New York, ran for fifty miles over the roadway of the Towando, with which it had a long-time tracking contract, and wandered up into the country, where it served as an outlet to certain conservatively profitable territory.
The secretary of the L. and C., a man of thick spectacles and a hundred wrinkles, looked up with fear in his eyes as his cramped old fingers clutched his pen.
“I suppose you’ll be making some important changes, Mr. Allison,” he quavered.
“Not in the active officers,” returned Allison with a smile, and the president, who wore flowing side-whiskers, came over to shake hands with him. “How soon can you call the meeting?”