ness with! Things like this are
what you miss by hibernating there, instead of dropping everything and
applying here for your pro rata share of the gayety of nations and the
concomitant scads.

"I was elected president of the road, and as soon as we get a little
track, and an engine, I expect to obtain an exchange of passes with all
my fellow monopolists in North America. I at once fired back an answer
to Ballard's telegram, which must have produced an impression upon the
Gould and Vanderbilt interests--if they got wind of it. If the L. & G.
W. should pass the paper stage next summer, it will do a whole lot
towards carrying this burg beyond the hypnotic period of development.

"The Angus Falls branch is going to build in next summer, I am
confident, and that means another division headquarters and, probably,
machine-shops. I'm working with some of the trilobites here to form a
pool, and offer the company grounds for additional yards and a
roundhouse and shops. Captain Tolliver interviewed General Lattimore
about it, and got turned down.

"'He told me, suh,' reported the Captain, in a fine white passion, 'that
if any railway system desiahs to come to Lattimore, it has his
puhmission! That the Injuns didn't give him any bonus when he came; and
that he had to build his own houses and yahds, by gad, at his own
expense, and defend 'em, too, and that if any railroad was thinkin' of
comin' hyah, it was doubtless because it was good business fo' 'em to
come; and that if they wanted any of his land, were willing to pay him
his price, there wouldn't be any difficulty about theiah getting it. And
that if there should arise any difference, which he should deeply
regret, but would try to live through, the powah of eminent domain with
which railways ah clothed will enable the company to get what land is
necessary by legal means.

"'I could take these observations,' said the Captain, 'as nothing except
a gratuitous insult to one who approached him, suh, in a spirit of pure
benevolence and civic patriotism. It shows the kind of tyrants who
commanded the oppressors of the South, suh! Only his gray hairs
protected him, suh, only his gray hairs!'"

"It's a little hard to separate the General from the Captain, in this
report of the committee on railway extensions," said my wife.

"The only thing that's clear about it," said I, "is that Jim is having a
good deal of fun with the Captain."

This became clearer as the correspondence we