It was left to me to start the conversation, and I plunged into some unpremeditated talk about trees. What was the best sort for paper-making? Hemlock, he explained, was good, but any kind of hard timber would do if it hadn’t gum in it. Gum prevented the acid penetrating the fibre. Couldn’t they extract the gum? Yes; they were learning how to do that, and paper had been made from pitch pine after the turpentine and gum were extracted. Did his own processes yield any by-products? Well, a good deal of gummy substance came out of spruce during the cooking process, but it was mixed with the acid, and a market for it had not been found. “Except for the acid,” said J. R. Booth thoughtfully, “it would make good chewing-gum.” In an interrogatory spirit, I mentioned the great trees of British Columbia. But the old man shook his head. There was, it seemed, a great deal of pitch in them. “I don’t know of any place in the world,” he added, “where, for softness and lightness and durability, you would get anything to match our white pines.” But all this time—as the keen blue eyes seemed fully aware—my questions were unrelated to the matter uppermost in my mind. I really did not feel curious about the trees. It was not my intention to start a rival pulp and paper mill. I was not even proposing to write a treatise on the subject. My desire was to gain some clues to the working of an abnormal business brain. I sought to lead the conversation in that direction. How much paper did he make? One hundred tons a day, and about forty tons of cardboard. How many hands did he employ? In summer, 2,400 at the mills, and very nearly as many more in the woods. Then I gave tongue to my thoughts. “Paper-making is obviously a very delicate and complex matter,” I said. “How came you to strike out in that new direction at the age of eighty, and when you already had such vast undertakings to engage your attention?” Had I asked him the time, he could not have replied with greater readiness or in a tone more matter of fact. “Yes,” he said, “paper requires a great deal of care. When I took it up I didn’t know anything about it, and that was a little disadvantage for a while. You ask why I took it up. Well, I had a railroad—four hundred miles—and I sold it. I felt rather lost without my railroad. So I took up paper.” Could any explanation be more complete or more simple? J. R. Booth hadn’t enough to occupy him, so he “took up paper.” Before going further with our conversation, I ought to explain what lay behind that other simple sentence: “I had a railroad.”