"Rotten—rotten!" he exploded; "just think of it, a mess like this putrefying right under our noses and we don't get wise until they smell it in Kansas City and Chicago. And now, Ben Taylor, while I feel sure you are on the right track at last, and are going to make good, you seem to be moving so maddeningly slow and deliberate." He said this with a deep sigh from the depths of his waistband, his chubby hand fingering a number of yellow slips used for official railroad messages and reminding me of the mysterious one sent to Hiram about Becker & Co. receiving freight by rail, but invariably shipping out by water.
"But, Mr. Kitchell, haste in this matter will be fatal to final results," I said casually.
"Yes, perhaps—at any rate I hope that's so, but I'm so damnably worked up over this matter that I am about wild. Then another thing, I don't quite understand why you have so much confidence in this young Strong, though I'll admit he shows good mettle. I recall at our first interview you said he was well connected in the North?" said he, still glancing nervously over the messages on his desk.
"Hiram Strong is well connected. He has inherited a great pride and along with it what seems to be honor. He feels keenly the onus cast upon him in this matter, but has withal a saving sense of humor. He is working out his own salvation and feels he is heading off an attempt to make him the goat—to him it is simply a matter of keeping out of jail. He has, I believe, demonstrated that he can do head work as well as leg work, and I feel like giving him room to turn around," I insisted, perhaps too testily.
"I wonder if he is kin of this man Hiram Strong, who was reported this morning as coming in on our system at Chicago in his private car. Do you know, Taylor, I wish every private car was in hell—as though we didn't have enough trouble already! Our passenger engines are loaded with every pound they can keep rolling and every once in a while we get a private car of some millionaire pork-sticker or quick-rich, who wants to come down here to shoot ducks or some other fool thing. Do you think it is the same man?" he demanded.
"It might be."
"Do you suppose the boy has got word to him, and he is coming down here to raise the devil?" he asked, eyeing me as though I might have something to do with it.
"As I understand it, from the boy, he was thrown out entirely on his own resources—disinherited—and as far as appearances go, is completely estranged from his father."
"Well, by Heaven, if he shows up here with a chip on his shoulder, I'm going to turn him over to you—do you understand?—I'll turn him over to you. You know all about it, and I've had a stomachful of educating rich men's sons, and all the other troubles I want," he insisted, disgustedly, as I started to go to my office.
"I will be glad to do all I can for you, Mr. Kitchell. Let me know as far as possible in advance."