Now turn that rule back. Henry Blank finds his way into the Grand Central or the Pennsylvania Station in the City of New York. He has a business errand which will carry him six hundred miles west of the Hudson River--for the first time in his life. He plans to go to Cleveland, stay two days there in which he will do the work of six, and then come right back to Broadway once more. But the ticket-seller--the expert seller of transportation--has studied the Italian school of railroading. "Make it Toledo or Detroit," he hints, "and we will make the mileage rate from Cleveland to either one of those towns a flat three cents a mile, instead of the 3.6 cents which the Interstate Commerce Commission made the law of the land in August of 1920." Blank hesitates. The ticket-seller does not. "While if you can be tempted to go on from Toledo or Detroit to that smart young town, Chicago," he urges, "we will bill you at the intervening distance between them at a mere 2.75 cents--a historic percentage, you will remember. From Chicago to the Missouri River, two and one half cents a mile. Two cents a mile flat on the next big lap, down to El Paso or Albuquerque or over to Cheyenne or Denver; lower all the time you go further west--until that New York-Cleveland ticket that you are buying of me now, Mr. Blank, will carry you all through California at a cent and a quarter a mile. You cannot afford to stay out of California at such a rate." And there is a strong probability that he will not. My friend, the old railroader, snorts at this suggestion: "What do you think that the California railroad commission is going to say about some fellow from Boston riding all over their State at a cent and a quarter a mile, simply because he bought a ticket from South Station down to Providence, and had it extended once or twice?" he asks. Then adds: "I don't _think_; I _know_. They will say, 'Very good, Mr. Southern Pacific, if you can afford to carry him at a cent and a quarter a mile, you carry the man in Stockton, who wants to go up to Sacramento or to Marysville, at the same identical rate per mile. That's fair, and it's our business to make you be fair!'"