ected, "is out of the question. I
can't expect my directors to view half the price with any favor. How can
I?"

"Show them our earnings," I suggested.

"Yes," said he, "that will do very well to talk to people who can be
made to forget the fact that you've been building a city there from a
country village, and your line has been pulling in everything to build
it with. The next five years will be different. Again, while I feel sure
the business men of your town will still throw things our way, as they
have your way--tonnage I mean--there might be a tendency to divide it up
more than when your own people were working for the trade. And the next
five years will be different anyhow."

"Do you remember," said I, "how skeptical you were as to the past five?"

"I acknowledge it," said he, laughing. "The fact is I didn't give you
credit for being as big men as you are. But even a big man, or a big
town, can reach only as high as it can. But we can't settle that
question. I shouldn't expect a Lattimore boomer ever to adopt my view of
it. I shall give this matter some attention to-day, and while I feel
sure we are too far apart ever to come together, come in in the morning,
and we will look at it again."

"I hope we may come together," said I, rising; "we built the line to
bring you into Lattimore, and we want to keep you there. It has made our
town, and we prize the connection highly."

"Ah, yes," he answered, countering. "Well, we are spread out a good deal
now, you know; and some of our directors look with suspicion upon your
sudden growth, and would not feel sorry to withdraw. I don't agree with
'em, you know, but I must defer to others sometimes. Good-morning."

I passed the evening with Carson at the theatre, and supped with him
afterward. He gave me every opportunity to indulge in champagne, and
evinced a desire to know all about business conditions in Lattimore, and
the affairs of the L. & G. W. I suspected that the former fact had some
connection with the latter. I went to my hotel, however, in my usual
state of ebriety, while Mr. Carson had attained a degree of friendliness
toward me bordering on affection, as a direct result of setting the pace
in the consumption of wine. I listened patiently to his complaints of
Halliday's ungratefulness toward him in not giving him the General
Managership of one of the associated roads; but when he began to confide
to me the various pathological conditions of his family, inclu