Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/76

 Should he do it? No; be hanged if he would! He felt big and self-important as he slammed the first of them face down upon his desk and each thereafter in succession upon its fellow, until the pile toppled over, after which, leaving the reckless heap behind him, while Burman snickered again, John stamped out of the room.

"These S. F. & E. P. tariffs are so old they've got whiskers on 'em," he began to say to Mr. Mitchell, "and hairs! And the hair has never been cut nor even combed. They have been tagged and fattened and trimmed and sliced and slewed round till the tariff is issued just to keep up the basis and the tradition, and then you look in something else,—an amendment, or a special, or a 'private special', or sometimes the carbon copy of a letter,—to find out what the rate actually is. Sometimes when I call their office up on the 'phone to get a rate, it takes 'em twenty-four hours to answer, and maybe a week later they notify me the answer was wrong. Our slate is clean; why not simmer the figures down to what is the actual basis instead of the assumed one, and publish the rates as we intend to charge 'em, and as we know they do charge 'em?"

Mitchell had listened with surprise at first to this rash proposal. It sounded youthful and impetuous. But it also sounded sensible. Mitchell hated red tape, and he knew that John's idea was the right one; but tradition was god on the S. F. & E. P. They would fight the innovation and fight it hard; they might win, too, and Mr. Mitchell had no stomach for tilting at windmills. However, it might be a good thing for John, this fight; might make him forget that foolish stage ambition of his; and if he won, might crown him so lustrously that of itself it would save him to a future already assuredly brilliant in the railroad business.

"Do you think you could whip it out with 'em before