“Well, she first read me a lecture about bad, empty, shallow men, whose very souls were damned by their past careers, interfering with the pure impulses of younger men, and I 'll swear I felt like crawling in a hole and pulling the hole in after me. Well, I got through that, in a fashion, because she didn't want me to see her real heart, and that helped me. Then she took up the railroad scheme. You know I had heard that she advised her father in all his business matters, but, geewhilikins! I never dreamt she could give me points, but she did—she simply did. She looked me straight in the eye and stared at me like a national bank examiner as she asked me to explain why that particular road could not be built, and why it would not be a bonanza for the owners of the timber-land. I thought she was an easy fish at first, and I gave her plenty of line, but she kept peppering me with unanswerable questions till I lay down on the bank as weak as a rag. The first bliff she gave me was in wanting to know if there were not many branch roads that did not own their rolling stock. She said she knew one in the iron belt in Alabama that didn't own a car or an engine, and wouldn't have them as a free gift. She said if such a road were built as you plan these two main lines would simply fall over each other to send out cars to be loaded for shipment at competitive rates. By George! it was a corker. I found out the next day that she was right, and that doing away with the rolling stock, shops, and so forth, would cut down the cost of your road more than half.”
“That's a fact,” exclaimed Alan, “and I had not thought of it.”
“She's a stronger woman than I ever imagined,” said Miller. “By George! if she were not on your string, I'd make a dead set for her. A wife like that would make a man complete. She's in love with you—or thinks she is—but she hasn't that will o' the wisp glamour. She's business from her toes to her fingertips. By George! I believe she makes a business of her love affair; she seems to think she 'll settle it by a sum in algebra. But to get back to the railroad, for I've got lots to tell you. What do you reckon I found that day? You couldn't guess in a thousand years. It was a preliminary survey of a railroad once planned from Darley right through your father's purchase to Morganton, North Carolina. It was made just before the war, by old Colonel Wade, who, in his day, was one of the most noted surveyors in the State. This end of the line was all I cared about, and that was almost as level as a floor along the river and down the valley into the north end of town. It's a bonanza, my boy. Why that big bottle of timber-land has never been busted is a wonder to me. If as many Yankees had been nosing about here as there have been in other Southern sections it would have been snatched up long ago.”
“I'm awfully glad to hear you say all this,” said Alan, “for it is the only way out of our difficulty, and something has to be done.”
“It may cost you a few years of the hardest work you ever bucked down to,” said Miller, “and some sleepless nights, but I really believe you have fallen on to a better thing than any I ever struck. I could make it whiz. I've already done something that will astonish you. I happen to know slightly Tillman Wilson, the president of the Southern Land and Timber Company. Their offices are in Atlanta. I knew he was my man to tackle, so when I got to Atlanta yesterday I ran upon him just as if it were accidental. I invited him to lunch with me at the Capitol City Club—you know I'm a non-resident member. You see, I knew if I put myself in the light of a man with something to sell, he'd hurry away from me; but I didn't. As a pretext, I told him I had some clients up here who wanted to raise a considerable amount of money and that the security offered was fine timber-land. You see that caught him; he was on his own ground. I saw that he was interested, and I boomed the property to the skies. The more I talked the more he was interested, till it was bubbling out all over him. He's a New-Englander, who thinks a country lawyer without a Harvard education belongs to an effete civilization, and I let him think he was pumping me. I even left off my g's and ignored my r's. I let him think he had struck the softest thing of his life. Pretty soon he begun to want to know if you cared to sell, but I skirted that indifferently as if I had no interest whatever in it. I told him your father had bought the property to hold for an advance, that he had spent years of his life picking out the richest timber spots and buying them up. Then he came right out, as I hoped he would, and asked me the amount you wanted to borrow on the property. I had to speak quick, and remembering that you had said the old gentleman had put in about twenty thousand first and last, I put the amount at twenty-five thousand. I was taking a liberty, but I can easily get you out of it if you decide not to do it.”
“Twenty-five thousand! On that land?” Alan cried. “It would tickle my father to death to sell it for that.”
“I can arrange the papers so that you are not liable for any security outside of the land, and it would practically amount to a sale if you wished it, but you don't wish it. I finally told him that I had an idea that you would sell out for an even hundred thousand.”
“A hundred thousand!” repeated Alan, with a cheery laugh. “Yes, we'd let go at that.”
“Well, the figures didn't scarce him a bit, for he finally came right out and asked me if it was my opinion that in case his company made the loan, you would agree to give him the refusal of the land at one hundred thousand. I told him I didn't know, that I thought it possible, but that just then I had no interest in the matter beyond borrowing a little money on it. He asked me how long I was going to stay in Atlanta. I told him I was going to a bank and take the night train back. 'The banks will stick you for a high rate of interest,' he said, jealously. 'They don't do business for fun, while, really, our concern happens just now to have some idle capital on hand. Do you think you could beat five per cent.? I admitted that it was low enough, but I got up as if I was suddenly reminded that the banks close early in the afternoon. 'I think we can make the loan,' he said, 'but I must first see two or three of the directors. Can't you give me two hours?' I finally gave in and promised to meet him at the Kimball House at four. I went to a matinée, saw it half over, and went in at the ladies' entrance of the hotel. I saw him looking about for me and dodged him.”
“Dodged him?” echoed Alan. “Why—”