"Very well, Jones. I'll send a representative to your Mr. Sturgis.
I'll send Torchy, here."

I don't know which of us gasped louder, me or George Wesley. Got him
in the short ribs, that proposition did. But, say, he's a game old
sport, even if the papers are callin' him everything from highway
robber to yellow dog. He shrugs his shoulders and bows polite.

"As you choose, Ellins," says he.

Maybe he thinks it's a bluff; but it's nothing like that.

"Boy," says Old Hickory, handin' back the envelope, "go find Mr. Percey
J. Sturgis, explain to him that the president of the P., B. & R. is
bound under a personal agreement not to parallel any lines in which the
Corrugated holds a one-third interest. Tell him I demand that he quit
on this Palisades route. If he won't, offer to buy his blasted
charter. Bid up to one hundred thousand, then 'phone me. Got all
that?"

"I could say it backwards," says I. "Shake the club first; then wave
the kale at him. Do I take a flyin' start?"

"Go now," says Old Hickory. "We will wait here until five. If he
wants to know who you are, tell him you're my office boy."

Wa'n't that rubbin' in the salt, though? But it ain't safe to stir up
Hickory Ellins unless you got him tied to a post, and even then you
want to use a long stick. As I sails out and grabs my new fall derby
off the peg Piddie asks breathless: