Course with some parties that might be a risky tackle; but anyone with a front name like Percey I’m takin’ a chance on.  Percey!  Listens like one of the silky-haired kind that wears heliotrope silk socks, don’t it?  But, say, what finally shows up is a wide, heavy built gent with a big, homespun sort of face, crispy brown hair a little long over the ears, and the steadiest pair of bright brown eyes I ever saw.  Nothing fancy or frail about Percey J. Sturgis.  He’s solid and substantial, from his wide-soled No. 10’s up to the crown of his seven three-quarter hat.  He has a raincoat thrown careless over one arm, and he’s smokin’ a cigar as big and black as any of Old Hickory’s.

“Well, what is it, Son?” says he in one of them deep barytones that you feel all the way through to your backbone.

And this is what I’ve been sent out either to scare off or buy up!  Still, you can’t die but once.

“I’m from Mr. Ellins of the Corrugated Trust,” says I.

“Ah!” says he, smilin’ easy.

Well, considerin’ how my knees was wabblin’, I expect I put the proposition over fairly strong.

“You may tell Mr. Ellins for me,” says he, “that I don’t intend to quit.”

“Then it’s a case of buy,” says I.  “What’s the charter worth, spot cash?”

“Sorry,” says he, “but I’m too busy to talk about that just now.  I’m just starting for North Jersey.”

“Suppose I trail along a ways then?” says I.  “Mr. Ellins is waitin’ for an answer.”

“Is he?” says Percey J.  “Then come, if you wish.”  And what does he do but tow me down to a big tourin’ car and wave me into one of the back seats with him.  Listens quiet to all I’ve got to say too, while we’re tearin’ uptown, noddin’ his head now and then, with them wide-set brown eyes of his watchin’ me amused and curious.  But the scare I’m tryin’ to throw into him don’t seem to take effect at all.

“Let’s see,” says he, as we rolls onto the Fort Lee ferry, “just what is your official position with the Corrugated?”

I’d planned to shoot it at him bold and crushin’.  But somehow it don’t happen that way.

“Head office boy,” says I, blushin’ apologizin’; “but Mr. Ellins sent me out himself.”

“Indeed?” says he.  “Another of his original ideas.  A brilliant man, Mr. Ellins.”

“He’s some stayer in a scrap, believe me!” says I.  “And he’s got the harpoon out for this Palisades road.”

“So have a good many others,” says Mr. Sturgis, chucklin’.  “In fact, I don’t mind admitting that I am as near to being beaten on this enterprise as I’ve ever been on anything in any life.  But if I am beaten, it will not be by Mr. Ellins.  It will be by a hard-headed old Scotch farmer who owns sixty acres of scrubby land which I must cross in order to complete my right of way.  He won’t sell a foot.  I’ve been trying for six months to get in touch with him; but he’s as stubborn as a cedar stump.  And if I don’t run a car over rails before next June my charter lapses.  So I’m going up now to try a personal interview.  If I fail, my charter isn’t worth a postage stamp.  But, win or lose, it isn’t for sale to Hickory Ellins.”