, and which, I don't mind admitting now, I hired
his foreman to pi after the copy was lost.

"Keep everything as near ship-shape as you can. Watch the papers, or
they may do us more harm in a single fool story than can be remedied by
wise counter-mendacity in a year. Especially watch the _Times_, although
there's mighty little choice between them. You and Alice ought to spend
as much time at the Trescotts' as you can spare. You'll hear from me
almost daily. Wire anything of importance fully. Keep the L. & G. W.
extension story before the people; it may make some impression even in
the East, but it's sure to do good in the local fake market. Don't miss
a chance to jolly our Eastern banks. I should declare a dividend--say
4%--on Cement stock. At Atlas Power Company meeting ask Cornish to move
passing earnings to surplus in lieu of dividend, on the theory of
building new factories--anyhow, consult with the fellows about it: that
money will be handy to have in the treasury before the year is out,
unless I am mistaken. Sorry I can't be at these meetings. Will be back
for those of Rapid Transit and Belt Line Companies.

"Yours,
"Jim.

"P. S.--Coming in, I saw a group of children dancing on a bridge, close
to a schoolhouse, down near the Mississippi. I guess no one but myself
knew what they were doing; but I recognized our old 'Weevilly Wheat'
dance. I could imagine the ancient Scotch air, which the noise of the
train kept me from hearing, and the old words you and I used to sing,
dancing on the Elk Creek bridge:

"'We want no more of your weevilly wheat,
We want no more your barley;
But we want some of your good old wheat,
To make a cake for Charley!'

"You remember it all! How we used to swing the little girls around, and
when we remembered it afterwards, how we would float off into realms of
blissful companionship with freckled, short-skirted, bare-legged angels!
Things were simpler then, Al, weren't they? And to emphasize that fact,
my mind ran along the trail of the 'Weevilly Wheat' into the domain of
tickers, margins, puts and calls, and all the cussedness of the Board of
Trade, and came bump against poor Bill's bucket-shop deals, and settled
down to the chronic wonder as to just how badly crippled he was when he
died. If Will gets it figured out soon, at all accurately, wire me.