So, also, there was good fighting when Cornish wired from New York for Elkins and me to come to his aid in placing our Lattimore & Great Western bonds. Of course, we never expected to build this railway with our own funds. For two reasons, at least: it is bad form to do eccentric things, and we lacked a million or two of having the money. The line with buildings and rolling stock would cost, say, twelve thousand dollars per mile. Before it could be built we must find some one who would agree to take its bonds for at least that sum. As no one would pay quite par for bonds of a new and independent road, we must add, say, three thousand dollars per mile for discount. Moreover, while the building of the line was undertaken from motives of self-preservation, there seemed to be no good reason why we should not organize a construction company to do the actual work of building, and that at a profit. That this profit might be assured, something like three thousand dollars per mile more must go in. Of course, whoever placed the bonds would be asked to guarantee the interest for two or three years; hence, with two thousand more for that and good measure, we made up our proposed issue of twenty thousand dollars per mile of first-mortgage bonds, to dispose of which "the former member of the firm of Lusch, Carskaddan & Mayer" was revisiting the glimpses of Wall Street, and testing the strength of that mighty influence which the _Herald_ had attributed to him. "You've just _got_ to win," said Giddings, who was admitted to the secret of Cornish's embassy, "not only because Lattimore and all the citizens thereof will be squashed in the event of your slipping up; but, what is of much more importance, the _Herald_ will be laid in a lie about your Wall Street pull. Remember that when foes surround thee!" When we joined him, Cornish admitted that he was fairly well "surrounded." He had failed to secure the aid of Barr-Smith's friends, who said that, with the street-car system and the cement works, they had quite eggs enough in the Lattimore basket for their present purposes. In fact, he had felt out to blind ends nearly all the promising burrows supposedly leading to the strong boxes of the investing public, of which he had told us. He accounted for this lack of success on the very natural theory that the Halliday combination had found out about his mission, and was fighting him through its influence with the banks and trust companies. So he had done at last what Jim had advised him to do at first--secured an appointment with the mighty Mr. Pendleton; and, somewhat humbled by unsuccess, had telegraphed for us to come on and help in presenting the thing to that magnate.