Especially interesting was Mr. Asmunsen’s narrative of his tribulations as a quarry owner. He confessed that he never made any profits out of his quarry, and this, in spite of the enormous volume of business that had been caused by the destruction of San Francisco by the big earthquake. For six years the rebuilding of San Francisco had been going on, and his business had quadrupled and octupled, and yet he was no better off.
“The railroad knows my business just a little bit better than I do,” he said. “It knows my operating expenses to a cent, and it knows the terms of my contracts. How it knows these things I can only guess. It must have spies in my employ, and it must have access to the parties to all my contracts. For look you, when I place a big contract, the terms of which favor me a goodly profit, the freight rate from my quarry to market is promptly raised. No explanation is made. The railroad gets my profit. Under such circumstances I have never succeeded in getting the railroad to reconsider its raise. On the other hand, when there have been accidents, increased expenses of operating, or contracts with less profitable terms, I have always succeeded in getting the railroad to lower its rate. What is the result? Large or small, the railroad always gets my profits.”
“What remains to you over and above,” Ernest interrupted to ask, “would roughly be the equivalent of your salary as a manager did the railroad own the quarry.”
“The very thing,” Mr. Asmunsen replied. “Only a short time ago I had my books gone through for the past ten years. I discovered that for those ten years my gain was just equivalent to a manager’s salary. The railroad might just as well have owned my quarry and hired me to run it.”
“But with this difference,” Ernest laughed; “the railroad would have had to assume all the risk which you so obligingly assumed for it.”
“Very true,” Mr. Asmunsen answered sadly.
Having let them have their say, Ernest began asking questions right and left. He began with Mr. Owen.
“You started a branch store here in Berkeley about six months ago?”
“Yes,” Mr. Owen answered.
“And since then I’ve noticed that three little corner groceries have gone out of business. Was your branch store the cause of it?”