issues compared to this scrap that develops between Old Hickory and
Peter K. Groff.

Maybe you don't know about Peter K.? Well, he's the Mesaba agent of
Corrugated affairs, the big noise at the dirt end of the dividends.
It's Groff handles the ore proposition, you understand, and it's his
company that does the inter-locking act between the ore mines and us
and the railroads.

Course, I can't give you all the details without pullin' down a
subpoena from the Attorney-General's office, and I ain't anxious to
crowd Willie Rockefeller, or anybody like that, out of the witness
chair. But I can go as far as to state that, as near as I could dope
it out, Peter K. was only standin' on his rights, and if only him and
Mr. Ellins could have got together for half an hour peaceable-like
things could have been squared all around. We needed Groff every tick
of the clock, and just because he ain't always polite in statin' his
views over the wire wa'n't any first-class reason for us extendin' him
an official invitation to go sew his head in a bag.

Uh-huh, them was Old Hickory's very words. I stood by while he writes
the message. Then I takes it out and shows it to Piddie and grins.
You should have seen Piddie's face. He turns the color of green pea
soup and gasps. He's got all the fightin' qualities of a pet rabbit in
him, Piddie has.

"But--but that is a flat insult," says he, "and Mr. Groff is a very
irascible person!"

"A which?" says I. "Never mind, though. If he's got anything on Old