Almost any day, he was told, the Eastern bondholders might pounce down and put a receiver in charge of the company. Margrave did not understand receiverships according to High or Beach or any other legal authority; but according to Margrave they were an excuse for pillage, and it was a regret of his life that no fat receivership had ever fallen to his lot. But he was not going into Traction blindly. He wanted to know who else was interested, that he might avoid complications. William Porter was the only man in Clarkson who could swing Traction without assistance; he must not run afoul of Porter. Margrave was a master of the art of getting information, and he decided, on reflection, that the easiest way to get information about Porter was to coax it out of Wheaton.
He always called Wheaton "Jim," in remembrance of those early days of Wheaton's residence in Clarkson when Wheaton had worked in his office. He had watched Wheaton's rise with interest; he took to himself the credit of being his discoverer. When Wheaton called on his daughter he made no comment; he knew nothing to Wheaton's discredit, and he would no more have thought of criticizing Mabel than of ordering dynamite substituted for coal in the locomotives of his railroad. When he concluded that he needed Wheaton, he began playing for him, just as if the cashier had been a councilman or a member of the legislature or a large shipper or any other fair prey.
He had unconsciously made a good beginning by making Wheaton the King of the Carnival; he now resorted to that most insidious and economical form of bribery known as the annual pass.
One of these pretty bits of pasteboard was at once mailed to Wheaton by the Second Assistant General Something on Margrave's recommendation.
Wheaton accepted the pass as a tribute to his growing prominence in the town. He knew that Porter refused railroad passes on practical grounds, holding that such favors were extended in the hope of reciprocal compliments, and he believed that a banker was better off without them. Wheaton, whose vanity had been touched, could see no harm in them. He had little use for passes as he knew and cared little about traveling, but he had always envied men who carried their "annuals" in little brass-bound books made for the purpose. To be sure it was late in the year and passes were usually sent out in January, but this made the compliment seem much more direct; the Transcontinental had forgotten him, and had thought it well to rectify the error between seasons. He felt that he must not make too much of the railroad's courtesy; he did not know to which official in particular he was indebted, but he ran into Margrave one evening at the club and decided to thank him.
"How's traffic?" he asked, as Margrave made room for him on the settee where he sat reading the evening paper.
"Fair. Anything new?"
"No; it's the same routine with me pretty much all the time."
"I guess that's right. I shouldn't think there was much fun in banking. You got to keep the public too far away. I like to be up against people myself."