In rails, the same system has prevailed. Ironmasters have been pitted
against each other, as to which should produce an apparent rail at the
lowest price. At the outset of railways the rails were made of iron.
Competition gradually produced rails in which a core, of what is
technically called “cinder,” is covered up with a skin of iron; and the
cleverest foreman for an ironmaster was the man who could make rails with
the maximum of cinder and the minimum of iron. In more than one instance
has it been known in relaying an old line the worn-out rails have been
sold at a higher price per ton than the new ones were bought for; yet
this would hardly open the eyes of the buyers. The contrivances which
are resorted to to get hold of one another’s prices beforehand by
competing contractors are manifold; and, when they attend in person, they
commonly put off the filling up of their tender till the last moment.
Once a shrewd contractor found himself at the same inn with a rival who
always trod close on his heels. He was followed about and
cross-questioned incessantly, and gave vague answers. Within
half-an-hour of the last moment he went into the coffee room and sat
himself down in a corner where his rival could not overlook him. There
and then he filled up his tender, and, as he rose from the table, left
behind him the paper on which he had blotted it. As he left the room his
rival caught up the blotting paper, and, with the exulting glee of a
consciously successful rival, read off the amount backwards. “Done this
time!” was his mental thought, as he filled up his own tender a dollar
lower, and hastened to deposit it. To his utter surprise, the next day
he found that he had lost the contract, and complainingly asked his rival
how it was, for he had tendered below him. “How did you know you were
below me?” “Because I found your blotting paper.” “I thought so. I
left it on purpose for you, and wrote another tender in my bedroom. You
had better make your own calculations next time!”
—_Roads and Rails_, by W. B. Adams.