Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 24.djvu/464

456 Orcutt was delighted. He turned them over hastily but intelligently, and said : " I am so glad. I could not think you had forgotten. And I have seen Brannan, and Brannan has not forgot- ten." " Now do you know," said he, " in all this railroading of mine, I have not forgotten. I have learned many things that will help. When I built the great tunnel for the Cattawissaand Opelousas, 'by which we got rid of the old inclined planes, there was never a stone bigger than a peach-stone within two hundred miles of us. I baked the brick of that tunnel on the line with my own kilns. Ingham, I have made more brick, I believe, than any man living in the world ! "

"You are the providential man," said I.

" Am I not, Fred ? More than that," said he ; "I have succeeded in things the world counts worth more than brick. I have made brick, and I have made money ! "

" One of us make money ? " asked I, amazed.

" Even so," said dear Orcutt ; " one of us has made money." And he pro- ceeded to tell me how. It was not in building tunnels, nor in making brick. No ! It was by buying up the original stock of the Cattawissa and Opelousas, at a moment when that stock had hard- ly a nominal price in the market. There were the first mortgage bonds, and the second mortgage bonds, and the third, and I know not how much floating debt ; and, worse than all, the reputa- tion of the road lost, and deservedly lost. Every locomotive it had was asthmatic. Every car it had bore the marks of unprecedented accidents, for which no one was to blame. Rival lines, I know not how many, were cut- ting each other's throats for its legiti- mate business. At this juncture, dear George invested all his earnings as a contractor, in the despised original stock, he actually bought it for 3|- per cent, good shares that had cost a round hundred to every wretch who had sub- scribed. Six thousand eight hundred dollars every cent he had did George thus invest. Then he went himself to the trustees of the first mort- gage, to the trustees of the second, and to the trustees of the third, and told them what he had done.

Now it is personal presence that moves the world. Dear Orcutt has found that out since, if he did not know it before. The trustees who would have sniffed had George written to them, turned round from their desks, and begged him to take a chair, when he came to talk with them. Had he put every penny he was worth into that stock ? Then it was worth something which they did not know of, for George Orcutt was no fool about railroads. The man who bridged the Lower Rapidan when a freshet was running was no fool.

" What were his plans ? "

George did not tell, no, not to lord- ly trustees, what his plans were. He had plans, but he kept them to himself. All he told them was that he had plans. On those plans he had staked his all. Now would they or would they not agree to put him in charge of the running of that road, for twelve months, on a nominal salary. The superintend- ent they had had was a rascal. He had proved that by running away. They knew George was not a rascal. He knew that he could make this road pay expenses, pay bondholders, and pay a dividend, a thing no one else had dreamed of for twenty years. Could they do better than try him ?

Of course they could not, and they knew they could not. Of course, they sniffed and talked, and waited, and pre- tended they did not know, and that they must consult, and so forth and so on. But of course they all did try him, on his own terms. He was put in charge of the running of that road.

In one week he showed he should redeem it. In three months he did re- deem it !

He advertised boldly the first day : Infant children at treble price."

The novelty attracted instant remark. And it showed many things. First, it showed he was a humane man, who wished to save human life. He would