"I don't read them."
"Why?"
"Because the men who write them don't understand the facts, and what they know they distort—for money."
"Um," she observed thoughtfully. "But are there facts—like those? You know the facts."
"I don't know all of them."
"Are those you know straight or crooked?" she asked, feeling considerable interest in the question, now that it was started.
"I don't know what you would mean by crooked,—what is it you want to know?"
"Are you honest?" she asked with mild curiosity. "I mean in the way of railroad business. Of course I know you are other ways."
Lane smiled at her childlike seriousness.
"I always try to do what seems to me right under the circumstances."