nd your next
report after we have finished our line will show the Pacific Division
doing more than its share in the great showing of revenue per mile which
the Pendleton system always makes. I see that my twenty minutes is about
up. I hope I have made good our promises as to showing cause for coming
to you with our project."

Mr. Pendleton, after a moment's thought, said: "Have you made an
engagement for lunch?"

We had not. He turned to the telephone, and called for a number.

"Is this Mr. Wade's office?... Yes, if you please.... Is this Mr.
Wade?... This is Pendleton talking to you.... Yes, Pendleton.... There
are some gentlemen in my office, Mr. Wade, whom I want you to meet, and
I should be glad if you could join us at lunch at the club.... Well,
can't you call that off, now?... Say, at one-thirty.... Yes.... Very
kind of you.... Thanks! Good-by."

Having made his arrangements with Mr. Wade, he hung up the telephone,
and pushed an electric button. A young man from an outer office
responded.

"Tell Mr. Moore," said Pendleton to him, "that he will have to see the
gentlemen who will call at twelve--on that lake terminal matter--he will
understand. And see that I am not disturbed until after lunch.... And,
say, Frank! See if Mr. Adams can come in here--at once, please."

Mr. Adams, who turned out to be some sort of a freight expert, came in,
and the rest of the interview was a bombardment of questions, in which
we all took turns as targets. When we went to lunch we felt that Mr.
Pendleton had possessed himself of all we knew about our enterprise, and
filed the information away in some vast pigeon-hole case with his own
great stock of knowledge.

We met Mr. Wade over an elaborate lunch. He said, as he shook hands with
Cornish, that he believed they had met somewhere, to which Cornish bowed
a frigid assent. Mr. Wade was the head of The Allen G. Wade Trust
Company, and seemed in a semi-comatose condition, save when cates,
wine, or securities were under discussion. He addressed me as "Mr.
Corning," and called Cornish "Atkins," and once in a while opened his
mouth to address Jim by name, but halted, with a distressful look, at
the realization of the fact that he could not remember names enough to
go around. He made an appointment with me for the party for the next
morning.

"If you will come to my office before you call on Mr. Wade," said Mr.
Pendleton, "I will have a memorandum prepared of what we will do with
yo