Mr. Adams, who turned out to be some sort of a freight expert, came in, and the rest of the interview was a bombardment of questions, in which we all took turns as targets. When we went to lunch we felt that Mr. Pendleton had possessed himself of all we knew about our enterprise, and filed the information away in some vast pigeon-hole case with his own great stock of knowledge.
We met Mr. Wade over an elaborate lunch. He said, as he shook hands with Cornish, that he believed they had met somewhere, to which Cornish bowed a frigid assent. Mr. Wade was the head of The Allen G. Wade Trust Company, and seemed in a semi-comatose condition, save when cakes, wine, or securities were under discussion. He addressed me as “Mr. Corning,” and called Cornish “Atkins,” and once in a while opened his mouth to address Jim by name, but halted, with a distressful look, at the realization of the fact that he could not remember names enough to go around. He made an appointment with me for the party for the next morning.
“If you will come to my office before you call on Mr. Wade,” said Mr. Pendleton, “I will have a memorandum prepared of what we will do with you in the way of a traffic agreement: it may be of some use in determining the desirability of your bonds. I’m very glad to have met you, gentlemen. When Lattimore gets into my world—by which I mean our system and connections—I hope to visit the little city which has so strong a business community as to be able to send out such a committee as yourselves; good-afternoon!”
“Well,” said I, as we went toward our hotel, “this looks like progress, doesn’t it?”
“I sha’n’t feel dead sure,” said Jim, “until the money is in bank, subject to the check of the construction company. But doesn’t it look juicy, right now! Why, boys, with that traffic agreement we can get the money anywhere—on the prairie, out at sea—anywhere under the shining sun! They can’t beat us. What do you say, Cornish? Will, your friend Wade jar loose, or shall we have to seek further?”
“He’ll snap at your bonds now,” said Cornish, rather glumly, I thought, considering the circumstances; “but don’t call him a friend of mine! Why, damn him, not a week ago he turned me out of his office, saying that he didn’t want to look into any more Western railway schemes! And now he says he believes we’ve met before!”
This seemed to strike Mr. Elkins as the best practical joke he had ever heard of; and Cornish suggested that for a man to stop in Homeric laughter on Broadway might be pleasant for him, but was embarrassing to his companions. By this time Cornish himself was better-natured. Jim took charge of our movements, and commanded us to a dinner with him, in the nature of a celebration, with a theater-party afterward.
“Let us,” said he, “hear the chimes at midnight, or even after, if we get buncoed doing it. Who cares if we wind up in the police court! We’ve done the deed; we’ve made our bluff good with Halliday and his gang of highwaymen; and I feel like taking the limit off, if it lifts the roof! Al, hold your hand over my mouth or I shall yell!”
“Come into my parlor, and yell for me,” said Cornish, “and you may do my turn in police court, too. Come in, and behave yourself!”
I began writing a telegram to my wife, apprising her of our good luck. The women in our circle knew our hopes, ambitions, and troubles, as the court ladies know the politics of the realm, and there were anxious hearts in Lattimore.