The seven quiet gentlemen who sat with Allison at his library table, followed the concluding flourish of his hand toward the map on the wall, and either nodded or blinked appreciatively. The red line on his map was complete now, a broad, straight line from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and to it were added, on either side, irregular, angling red lines like the legs of a centipede, the feeders of the various systems which were under control of the new Atlantic-Pacific Railroad.

“That’s a brilliant piece of engineering, Allison,” observed huge Richard Haverman, by way of pleasant comment, and he glanced admiringly at Allison after his eye had roved around the little company of notables. The feat of bringing these seven men together at a specific hour, was greater than having consolidated the brilliant new Atlantic-Pacific Railroad.

“Let’s get to the details,” barked a voice with the volume of a St. Bernard. It came from Arthur Grandin, the head of the Union Fuel Company, which controlled all the wood and coal in the United States, and all the oil in the world. His bald spot came exactly on a level with the back of his chair, and he wore a fierce moustache.

“I’m putting in the Atlantic-Pacific as my share of the pool, gentlemen,” explained Allison. “My project, as I have told you, is to make this the main trunk, the vertebrÆ as it were, of the International Transportation Company. I have consolidated with the A.-P. the Municipal Transportation Company, and I have put my entire fortune in it, to lay it on the table absolutely unencumbered.”

He threw down the Atlantic-Pacific Railroad and the Municipal Transportation Company in the form of a one sheet typewritten paper.

“We’d better appoint some one to look after the legal end of things,” suggested the towering Haverman, whose careless, lounging attitude contrasted oddly with his dignified long beard.

“I’ll take care of it,” said W. T. Chisholm, of the Majestic Trust Company, and drawing the statement in front of him, he set a paperweight on it.

“The first step is not one of incorporation,” went on Allison. “Before that is done there must be but one railroad system in the United States.”

Smooth-shaven old Joseph G. Clark nodded his head. There was but one cereal company in the United States, and the Standard, in the beginning, had been the smallest. Two of the heads of rival concerns were now in Clark’s employ, one was a pauper, and three were dead. He disliked the pauper.

Robert E. Taylor, of the American Textiles Company, a man who had quite disproved the theory that constructive business genius was confined to the North, smoothed his grey moustache reflectively, with the tip of his middle finger, all the way out to its long point.

“I can see where you will tear up the east and west traffic situation to a considerable extent,” he thoughtfully commented; “but without the important north and south main trunks you can not make a tight web.”

Allison went over to his wall map, with a step in which there was the spring of a boy. A. L. Vance, of the United States Supplies Company, which controlled beef, sugar, and practically all other food products, except those mighty necessities under the sways of the Standard Cereal Company and Eldridge Babbitt’s National Dairy Products Consolidation, studied the buoyant Allison with a puzzled expression. He had seen Allison grow to care-burdened manhood, and suddenly Ed seemed twenty years younger. Only Eldridge Babbitt knew the secret of this miraculous rejuvenescence. Babbitt had married late in life; a beautiful young woman!

“The key to the north and south situation is here,” said Allison, and he drew a firm, swift, green line down across the United States, branching at each end. “George Dalrymple will be here in half an hour, and by that time I trust we may come to some agreement.”

“It depends on what you want,” boomed Arthur Grandin, who, sitting beside the immense Haverman, looked as if that giant had shrunk him by his mere proximity.

“Freight, to begin with,” stated Allison, resuming his place at the head of the table, but not his seat. “You gentlemen represent the largest freightage interests in the United States. You all know your relative products, and yet, in order to grasp this situation completely, I wish to enumerate them. Babbitt’s National Dairy Products Consolidation can swing the shipment of every ounce of butter, cream, cheese, eggs and poultry handled in this country; Clark’s Standard Cereal Company, wheat, corn, oats, rice, barley, malt, flour, every ounce of breadstuffs or cereal goods, grown on American soil; Haverman, the Amalgamated Metals Constructive Company, every pound of iron, lead, and copper, and every ton of ore, from the moment it leaves the ground until it appears as an iron web in a city sky or spans a river; Grandin, the Union Fuel Company, coal and wood, from Alaska to Pennsylvania, with oil and all its enormous by-products; Taylor, the American Textiles Company, wool, cotton, flax, the raw and finished material of every thread of clothing we wear, or any other textile fabric we use except silk; Vance, the United States Supplies Company, meat, sugar, fruit, the main blood and sinew builders of the country. Gentlemen, give me the freightage controlled by your six companies, and I’ll toss the rest of the country’s freightage to a beggar.”

“You forgot Chisholm,” Babbitt reminded him, and Banker Chisholm’s white mutton chops turned pink from the appreciation which glowed in his ruddy-veined face.

“Allison was quite right,” returned big Haverman with a dry smile. “The freightage income on money is an item scarcely worth considering.”

“Give the Atlantic-Pacific this freight, and, inside of two years, the entire business of the United States, with all its ramifications, will be merged in one management, and that management ours. We shall not need to absorb, nor purchase, a single railroad until it is bankrupt.”

“Sensible idea, Allison,” approved Clark, of the Standard Cereal Company. “It’s a logical proposition which I had in mind years ago.”

“Allison’s stroke of genius, it seems to me, consists in getting us together,” smiled big Haverman, hanging his arm over the back of his chair.

Banker Chisholm leaned forward on the table, and stroked his round chin reflectively. “There would be some disorganisation, and perhaps financial disorder, in the first two years,” he considered; “but the railroads are already harassed too much by the government to thrive under competition, and, in the end, I believe this proposed centralisation would be the best thing for the interests of the country”; wherein Chisholm displayed that he was a vestryman of Market Square Church wherever he went.

“What is your proposition?” asked Grandin, who, because of the self-assertion necessitated by his diminutive size, seemed pompous, but was not. No pompous man could have merged the wood, coal, and oil interests, and, having merged them, swung them over his own shoulder.

Allison’s answer consisted of one word.

“Consolidation,” he said.

There was a moment of silence, while these men absorbed that simple idea, and glanced speculatively, not at Allison, but at each other. They were kings, these heads of mighty corporations, whose emissaries carried their sovereignties into the furthest corners of the earth. Like friendly kings, they had helped each other in the protection of their several domains; but this was another matter.

“That’s a large proposition, Ed,” stated Vance, very thoughtfully. All sense of levity had gone from this meeting. They had come, as they thought, to promote a large mutual interest, but not to weld a Frankenstein. “I did not understand your project to be so comprehensive. I fancied your idea to be that the various companies represented here, with Chisholm as financial controller, should take a mutual interest in the support of the Atlantic-Pacific Railroad, for the purpose of consolidating the railroad interests of the country under one management, thereby serving our own transportation needs.”

“Very well put, Vance,” approved Taylor, smoothing his pointed moustache.

“That is a mere logical development of the railroad situation,” returned Allison. “If I had not cemented this direct route, some one would have made the consolidation you mention within ten years, for the entire railroad situation has been disorganised since the death of three big men in that field; and the scattered holdings would be, and are, an easy prey for any one vitally interested enough to invade the industry. I have no such minor proposition in mind. I propose, with the Atlantic-Pacific as a nucleus, to, first, as I have said, bring the financial terminals of every mile of railroad in the United States into one central office. With this I then propose to combine the National Dairy Products Consolidation, the Standard Cereal Company, the Amalgamated Metals Constructive Company, the Union Fuel, American Textiles, the United States Supplies, and the stupendous financial interests swayed by the banks tributary to the Majestic Trust Company. I propose to weld these gigantic concerns into one corporation, which shall be the mightiest organisation the world has ever known. Beginning with the control of transportation, it will control all food, all apparel, all construction materials, all fuel. From the shoes on his feet to the roof over his head, every man in the United States of America, from labourer to president, shall pay tribute to the International Transportation Company. Gentlemen, if I have dreamed big, it is because I have dealt with men who deal only in large dreams. What I propose is an empire greater than that ever swayed by any monarch in history. We eight men, who are here in this room, can build that empire with a scratch of a pen, and can hold it against the assaults of the world!”

His voice rang as he finished, and Babbitt looked at him in wonder. Allison had always been a strong man, but now, in this second youth, he was an Anteus springing fresh from the earth. There was a moment’s lull, and then a nasal voice drawled into the silence.

“Allison;” it was the voice of old Joseph G. Clark, who had built the Standard Cereal Company out of one wheat elevator; “who is to be the monarch of your new empire?”

For just a moment Allison looked about him. Vastly different as these men were, from the full-bearded Haverman to the smooth-shaven old Joseph G. Clark, there was some one expression which was the same in every man, and that expression was mastery. These men, by the sheer force of their personality, by the sheer dominance of their wills, by the sheer virility of their purposes, by the sheer dogged persistence which balks at no obstacle and hesitates at no foe, had fought and strangled and throttled their way to the top, until they stood head and shoulders above all the strong men of their respective domains, safe from protest or dispute of sovereignty, because none had risen strong enough to do them battle. They were the undefeated champions of their classes, and the life of every man in that group was an epic! Who was to be monarch of the new empire? Allison answered that question as simply as he had the others.

“The best man,” he said.

There had been seven big men in America. Now there were eight. They all recognised that.

“Of course,” went on Allison, “my proposition does not assume that any man here will begin by relinquishing control of his own particular branch of the International Transportation Company; sugar, beef, iron, steel, oil, and the other commodities will all be under their present handling; but each branch will so support and benefit the other that the position of the consolidation itself will be impregnable against competition or the assaults of government. The advantages of control, collection, and distribution, are so vast that they far outweigh any possible question of personal aggrandisement.”

“Don’t hedge, Allison,” barked Arthur Grandin. “You expressed it right in the first place. You’re putting it up to us to step out of the local championship class, and contend for the big belt.”

“The prize isn’t big enough,” pronounced W. T. Chisholm, as if he had decided for them all. As befitted his calling, he was slower minded than the rest. There are few quick turns in banking.

“Not big enough?” repeated Allison. “Not big enough, when the Union Fuel Company already supplies every candle which goes into the Soudan, runs the pumps on the Nile and the motor boats on the Yang-Tse-Kyang, supplies the oil for the lubrication of the car of Juggernaut, and works the propeller of every aeroplane? Not big enough, when already the organisations represented here have driven their industries into every quarter of the earth? What shall you say when we join to our nucleus the great steamship lines and the foreign railroads? Not big enough? Gentlemen, look here!” He strode over to the big globe. From New York to San Francisco a red line had already been traced. Now he took a pencil in his hand, and placing the point at New York, gave the globe a whirl, girding it completely. “Gentlemen, there is your empire!”

Again the nasal voice of old Joseph G. Clark drawled into the silence.

“I suggest that we discuss in detail the conditions of the consolidation,” he remarked.

The bell of Allison’s house phone rang.

“Mr. Dalrymple, sir,” said the voice of Ephraim.

“Very well,” replied Allison. “Show him into the study. Babbitt, will you read to the gentlemen this skeleton plan of organisation? If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be back in five minutes.”

“Dalrymple?” inquired Taylor.

“Yes,” answered Allison abstractedly, and went into the study.

He and Dalrymple looked at each other silently for a moment, with the old enmity shining between them. Dalrymple, a man five years Allison’s senior, a brisk speaking man with a protruding jaw and deep-set grey eyes, had done more than any other one human being to develop the transportation systems of New York, but his gift had been in construction, in creation, whereas Allison’s had been in combination; and Dalrymple had gone into the railroad business.

“Dalrymple, I’m going to give you a chance,” said Allison briskly. “I want the Gulf and Great Lakes Railroad system.”

Dalrymple had produced a cigar while he waited for Allison, and now he lit it. He sat on the corner of the study table and surveyed Allison critically.

“I don’t doubt it,” he replied. “The system is almost completed.”

“I’ll accept a fair offer for your controlling interest,” went on Allison.

“And if I won’t sell?”

“Then I’ll jump on you to-morrow in the stock exchange, and take it away from you.”

Dalrymple smiled.

“You can’t do it. I own my controlling interest outright, and no stock gamblings on the board of trade can affect either a share of my stock or the earning capacity of my railroad. When you drove me out of the traction field, I took advantage of my experience and entrenched myself. Go on and gamble.”

“I wish you wouldn’t take that attitude,” returned Allison, troubled. “It looks to you as if I were pursuing you because of that old quarrel; but I want you to know that I’m not vindictive.”

“I don’t think you are,” replied Dalrymple, with infinite contempt. “You’re just a damned hog.”

A hot flush swept over Allison’s face, but it was gone in an instant.

“It happens that I need the new Gulf and Great Lakes system,” he went on, in a perfectly level voice; “and I prefer to buy it from you at a fair price.”

Dalrymple put on his hat.

“It isn’t for sale,” he stated.

“Just a minute, Dalrymple,” interposed Allison. “I want to show you something. Look in here,” and he opened the library door.

Dalrymple stepped to the opening and saw, not merely seven men, middle-aged and past, sitting around a library table, but practically all the freightable necessities of the United States and practically all its money, a power against which his many million dollar railroad system was of no more opposition than a toy train.

“—the transportation department to be governed by a council composed of the representatives of the various other departments herein mentioned,” droned on the voice of Babbitt.

The representatives of the various other departments therein mentioned were bent in concentrated attention on every sentence, and phrase, and word, and syllable of that important document, not omitting to pay important attention to the pauses which answered for commas; and none looked up. Dalrymple closed the door gently.

“Now will you sell?” inquired Allison.

For a moment the two men looked into each other’s eyes, while the old enmity, begun while they were still in the womb of time, lay chill between them. At one instant, Dalrymple, whose jaw muscles were working convulsively, half raised his hands, as if he were minded to fall on Allison and strangle him; and it was not the fact that Allison was probably the stronger man which restrained him, but a bigger pride.

“No,” he said, again with that infinite contempt in his tone. “Break me.”

“All right,” accepted Allison cheerfully, and even with relief; for his way was now free to pursue its normal course. He crossed to the door which opened into the hall, and politely bowed Dalrymple into the guidance of old Ephraim.

“Dalrymple won’t sell,” he reported, when he rejoined his fellow members of the International Transportation Company.

Joseph G. Clark looked up from a set of jotted memoranda which he had been nonchalantly setting down during the reading.

“We’ll pick it up in the stock market,” he carelessly suggested.

“Can’t,” replied Allison, with equal carelessness. “He’s entrenched with solid control, and I imagine he doesn’t owe a dollar.”

Chisholm, with his fingers in his white mutton chops, was studying clean-shaven old Clark’s memoranda.

“A panic will be necessary, anyhow,” he observed. “We’ll acquire the road then.”