r of
being ditched. Some kind of an electric power distributin' stunt it
is, one that he'd doped out durin' a Western trip last summer; just a
little by-play with a few hundred square miles of real estate,
includin' the buildin' of twenty or thirty miles of trolley and
plantin' a few factories here and there.

But now here's Ballinger, our Western manager, in on the carpet, tryin'
to explain why it can't be done. He's been at it for two hours, helped
out by a big consultin' engineer and the chief attorney of our Chicago
branch. They've waved blue-print maps, submitted reports of experts,
and put in all kinds of evidence to show that the scheme has either got
to be revised radical or else chucked.

"Very sorry, Mr. Ellins," says Ballinger, "but we have done our best."

"Bah!" snaps Old Hickory. "It's all waste land, isn't it? Of course
he'll sell. Who is he, anyway?"

"His name," says Ballinger, pawin' over some letters, "is T. Waldo
Pettigrew. Lives in New York, I believe; at least, his attorneys are
here. And this is all we have been able to get out of them--a flat
no." And he slides an envelope across the mahogany table.

"But what's his reason?" demands Old Hickory. "Why? That's what I
want to know."

Ballinger shrugs his shoulders. "I don't pretend," says he, "to
understand the average New Yorker."

"Hah!" snorts Mr. Ellins. "Once more that old alibi of the
limber-spined; that hoary fiction of the ten-cent magazine and the
two-dollar drama. Average New Yorker! Listen, Ballinger. There's no
such thing. We're just as different, and just as much alike, as
anybody else. In other words, we're human. And this Pettigrew person
you seem to think such a mysterious and peculiar individual--well, what
about him? Who and what is he?"

"According to the deeds," says Ballinger, "he is the son of Thomas J.
and Mary Ann Pettigrew, both deceased. His attorneys are Mott, Drew &
Mott. They write that their client absolutely refuses to sell any land
anywhere. They have written that three times. They have declined to
discuss any proposition. And there you are."

"You mean," sneers Old Hickory, "that there you are."

"If you can suggest anything further," begins Ballinger, "we shall be
glad to--"

"I know," breaks in Old Hickory, "you'd be glad to fritter away another
six months and let those International Power people jump in ahead of
us. No, thanks. I mean to see if I can't get a little action n