Free The Driver by Garet Garrett

the Yardmaster’s Assistant,—such were the titles. Against the right wall to a height of six feet were book shelves filled with all the contemporary financial and commercial periodicals in bound volumes, almanacs, endless books of statistical reference and the annual reports of various railway corporations, running back for many years. On top of the shelves was the only decorative thing in the room,—a beautiful working model of a locomotive, perfect in every intricate part, mounted in brass and set upon a nickel plated section of railway.
    One could have guessed without seeing him that the occupant of this room was restless, never at physical ease, and worked all over the place, sitting here and there, lying down and walking about. On the left side of the room was a couch and close beside it at one end a morris chair, a reading light between them. Both the couch and chair showed nervous wear and tear. And beyond the table in the clear space the rug had been paced threadbare.
    Most of the available wall area was covered with maps and colored charts. I walked about looking at them. Galt removed his shoes, put on slippers, got into a ragged lounging jacket and threw himself on the couch, where he lay for some time watching me with the air of one who waits only to pop open at the slightest touch in the right place.
    “What is this?” I asked, staring at a large map which showed the Great Midwestern in heavy red lines, as I fairly well knew it, but with such ramified extensions in blue lines as to make it look like a gigantic double-ended animal with its body lying across the continent and its tentacles flung wide in the east and west.
    “That’s crystal gazing,” he said.
    “It’s what?”
    “What may be,” he said, coming off the couch with a spring. As he passed the table he snatched up a ruler to point with.
    See! There was the Great Midwestern alone,—all there was of it, from there to there. It was like a desert bridge from east to west, or, better still, like a strait connecting two vast oceans of freight. It was not so placed as to be able to originate traffic for itself, not profitably, yet that is what it had always been trying to do instead of attending exclusively to its own unique function. Its opportunity was to become the Dardanelles of trans-continental traffic. To realize its destiny it must control traffic at both ends. How? Why, by controlling railroads east and west that developed and originated freight, as a river gathers water, by a system of branches reaching up to the springs. And those blue lines, see!—they were those other roads which the Great Midwestern should control in its own interest.
    He turned to a chart ten feet long by four feet deep hung level with the eyes on the opposite wall, The heavy black line erratically rising and falling against a background of graduated horizontal lines was an accurate profile of the Great Midwestern for the whole of its length,—that is, a cross section of the earth showing the configuration of its surface under the G. M. railroad’s ties and rails. It was unique, he said. Never had such a thing been done on this scale before. The purpose was to exhibit the grades in a graphic manner. There were many bad grades, each one like a hole in the pocket. His knowledge was minute. “Now from here to here,” he said, indicating 100 miles of profile with low grades, “it costs half a cent to move a ton of freight one mile, and that pays. But from here to here,” indicating a sudden rise in the next fifty miles, “it costs three cents per ton per mile and all the profit made in the preceding 100 miles is lost on that one grade.”
    “What can be done about it?” I asked.
    “Cut that grade down from 150 to 50 feet in the mile,” he said, slicing the peak of it through with his ruler, “and freight can be moved at a profit.”
    “It would take a lot of labor and money, wouldn’t it?”
    “Well, what of all this unemployment belly-ache you and old