Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/63

 He nodded. "I had a wire from him yesterday. I'm going down in the morning. It's something about the road. The Interstate Commerce Commission is smelling a rat, I fancy; Lovering wired something about an inquiry into freight rates. But why drag me into it, eh?"

"But, Gordon, it's your own road! Surely"

"It isn't my road at all, Fair Lady; it's Lovering's road, and Wharton's road and all the other old granny directors' road. If by any possible chance I have an idea of my own they throw up their hands in holy horror and squeak, 'Oh, dear, that would never do! Never in the world!' What's the use, eh? By Jove, some day I'll get up my spunk and go down there and take that road by the throat and shake the mischief out of it!"

"I suppose, my dear, that Mr. Lovering and Mr. Wharton and the others really know best. They're experienced, you see."

"Of course they know best! That's what makes me tired. Why the dickens didn't dad pound some railroad sense into me, I wonder? All I ever learned was to speak French and German with a