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N his way to Rayburn Miller's office that morning Alan decided that he
would not allude to the note he had received the previous evening from
Dolly. He did not like the cynical mood into which such subjects seemed
to draw his friend. He knew exactly what Miller would say, and felt that
it would be too personal to be agreeable.
He found the lawyer standing in the door of his little office building
waiting for him.
“I reckon my message surprised you,” Miller said, tentatively, as he
shook hands.
“It took me off my feet,” smiled Alan. “You see, I never hoped to get
you interested in that scheme, and when I heard you were actually going
to Atlanta about it, I hardly knew what to make of it.”
Miller turned into his office, kicked a chair towards Alan and dropped
into his creaking rocker.
“It was not due to you that I did get interested,” he said. “Do you
know, I can't think of it without getting hot all over with shame. To
tell you the truth, there is one thing I have always been vain about. I
didn't honestly think there was a man in Georgia that could give me any
tips about investments, but I had to take back water, and for a woman.
Think of that--a woman knocked me off my perch as clean and easy as she
could stick a hair-pin in a ball of hair. I'm not unfair; when anybody
teaches me any tricks, I acknowledge the corn an' take off my hat.
It was this way: I dropped in to see Miss Dolly the other evening. I
accidentally disclosed two things in an offhand sort of way. I told her
some of the views I gave you at the dance in regard to marriage and love
and one thing and another, and then, in complimenting you most highly in
other things, I confess I sort o' poked fun at your railroad idea.”
“I thought you had,” said Alan, good-naturedly; “but go on.”
“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--”
Miller laughed. “You don't suppose I'd let a big fish like that see me
flirting my hook and pole about in open sunlight, do you? I saw by his
manner that he was anxious to meet me, and that was enough; besides, you
can't close a deal like that in a minute, and there are many slips. I
went back to the club and threw myself on a lounge and began to smoke
and read an afternoon paper. Presently he came in a cab. I heard him
asking for me in the hall and buried my head in the paper. He came in
on me and I rose and looked stupid. I can do it when I try--if it _is_
something God has failed at--and I began to apologize.
“He didn't seem to care. 'If it had been a deal of your own,' he said
with a laugh, 'you'd have been more prompt,' and I managed to look
guilty. Then he sat down.
“'Our directors are interested,' he said, confidentially. 'The truth is
there is not another concern in America that can handle that property as
cheaply as we can. We happen to have a railroad about that length up
in East Tennessee that has played out, and you see we could move it to
where it would do some good.'
“As soon as he told me that I knew he was our meat; besides, I saw trade
in his eye as big as an arc-light. To make a long tale short, he is
coming up here tonight, and if your father is willing to accept the
loan, he can get the money, giving only the land as security--provided
we don't slip up. Here's the only thing I'm afraid of. When Wilson gets
here he may get to making inquiries around and drop on to the report
that your father is disgusted with his investment, and smell a mouse
and pull off. What I want to do is to get at him the first thing after
breakfast in the morning, so you'd better bring your father and mother
in early. If we once get Wilson's twenty-five thousand into it, we can
eventually sell out. The main thing is the loan. Don't you think so?”
“I certainly do,” said Alan. “Of course, a good many things might
interfere; we'd have to get a right of way and a charter before the road
could be built, and I reckon they won't buy till they are sure of those
things.”
“No it may take a long time and a lot of patience,” said Miller. “But
your father could afford to wait if he can get his money back by means
of the loan. I tell you that's the main thing. If I had offered to sell
Wilson the whole thing at twenty-five thousand he never would have come
up here, but he is sure now that the property is just what he is looking
for. Oh, we are not certain of him by a long jump! It all depends on
whether he will insist on going over there or not. If he does, those
moss-backs will bu'st the thing wide open. If he comes straight to my
office in the morning the deal may be closed, but if he lies around the
hotel talking, somebody will spoil our plans and Wilson will hang off to
make his own terms later--if he makes any at all. It's ticklish, but we
may win.”
“It _is_ a rather ticklish situation,” admitted Alan, “but even if we do
get the loan on the property, don't you think Wilson may delay matters
and hope to scoop the property in for the debt?”
“He might,” Miller smiled, “if he didn't want to move that railroad
somewhere else, and, besides, your father can keep the money in suitable
shape to pay off the note in any emergency and free himself.”
“I don't know how to thank you, old man,” answered Alan. “If you had
been personally interested in this you could not have done more.”
Miller threw himself back in his chair and smiled significantly. “Do I
look like a man with nothing in it?” he asked.
“But you haven't anything in it,” retorted Alan, wonderingly.
“That's all you know about it” Miller laughed.
“If the road is built I 'll make by it. This is another story. As soon
as I saw you were right about putting a railroad into the mountains, I
began to look around for some of that timber-land. I didn't have long
to wait, for the only man that holds much of it besides Colonel
Barclay--Peter Mosely, whom Perkins fooled just as he did your
father--came in. He was laying for me, I saw it in his eye. The Lord had
delivered him to me, and I was duly thankful. He was a morsel I liked
to look at. He opened up himself, bless you! and bragged about his fine
body of virgin timber. I looked bored, but let him run on till he was
tired; then I said:
“'Well, Mosely, what do you intend to do with your white elephant? You
know it's not just the sort Barnum is looking for.'
“He kind o' blinked at that, but he said, 'I've half a notion to sell.
The truth is, I've got the finest investment open to me that I ever had.
If I could afford to wait a few years I could coin money out of this
property, but I believe in turning money quick.'
“'So do I,' said I, and watched him flirt about in the frying-pan. Then
I said, 'What is the price you hold it at?'
“'I thought,' said he, 'that I ought to get as much as I paid.'
“'As much as you paid Abe Tompkins and Perkins?' I said, with a grin.
'Do you think you could possibly sell a piece of land for as much as
those sharks? If you can, you'd better go in the real-estate business.
You'd coin money. Why, they yanked two thousand out of you, didn't
they?'
“'I don't really think Perkins had anything to do with it,' he said.
'That's just a report out about old man Bishop's deal. I bought my land
on my own judgment.'
“'Well,' I said, 'how will fifteen hundred round wheels strike you?'
“'I believe I 'll take you up,' he said. 'I want to make that other
investment.' So we closed and I went at once to have the deed recorded
before he had a chance to change his mind. Now, you see, I'm interested
in the thing, and I'm going to help you put it through. If your folks
want the loan, bring them in in the morning, and if we can manage our
Yankee just right, we 'll get the money.”