“What he figures and what you think he figures are mighty wide apart sometimes.  It cost me money to find that out.”

The telephone interrupted.  Castle answered:  “Yes, Hammond, I can see you now.  What is it?...  All right.  Come right up.”  Hammond was the railroad’s general counsel.

He appeared presently.

“I thought we had the legislature up yonder tamed,” he said, angrily, as he entered the office.

“We have.”

“Huh!...  Take a look at this.”  He handed to the president Scattergood’s novel taxation, measure.  “What you make of that?  Who’s behind it?  What’s the game?”

Castle read it carefully; then he turned to Crane.  “You win,” he said, succinctly.  “Your friend Scattergood has brought the fight right on to our front porch....  What about it, Hammond?  Will such a tom-fool law stand water?”

“Can’t tell.  My judgment is that it wouldn’t, but it’s such a fool law that nobody can tell.  And if it stuck—­” He sucked in his breath.  “It would give every jay legisature a show to rough the railroads beautifully.”

“It would hurt....  Of course it mustn’t pass.  Get after it and don’t let any grass grow.  Kill it in committee.  That’s the safest way....  Have Lafe Siggins look after it.”

Hammond bustled out, and Castle turned to his brother-in-law.  “I underestimated this Scattergood some,” he said.  “Now I’ll go after him....  For reasons of necessity we will discontinue all train service at the flag station at the mouth of Coldriver Valley.  That’ll leave his stage line dangling in the air.  Just for a taste of what we can do....  I’ll have Hammond look after that condemnation matter for you.”

“He’ll be coming around to offer to sidetrack that legislation if you’ll let him build his railroad.”

“Probably.  I guess we won’t trade.”

But Scattergood did not come around to offer a compromise.  He seemed to have lost interest in the matter wholly and to give his time solely to his hardware store.  But the Transient Car bill, as it came to be called, began mysteriously to attract unprecedented attention.  The press of the state showed unusual interest in it.  In short, it became the one big measure of the legislative session.  Everything else was secondary to it.  When a railroad measure is hotly discussed in every loafing place in a state there is a measure that legislators handle with gloves.  It is loaded.  When the home folks get really interested in a thing they are apt to demand explanations.  Wherefore it was but natural that President Castle’s experts found it impossible to strangle the bill in committee.  It was reported out, and then Hammond found it wise to journey to the capital to take charge of things himself.

At the end of a week, Mr. Hammond, general counsel for the G. & B. and expert handler of legislatures, was forced to write President Castle that he faced a condition new in his broad experience.