Wishing to know if the Louisville and Nashville would unite with other roads in making through rates to him, Rice asked the question of its freight agent. He replied: "I do not see that it is any of your business." "It was undoubtedly his business," the Interstate Commerce Commission says, sharply; "and his inquiry on the subject was not wanting either in civility or propriety." When Rice asked the same road for rates, the officials refused to give them to him, and persisted in their refusal.[409] Like Vanderbilt before the New York Legislative Committee, they seemed to think excuses to shippers were a substitute for transportation, and evidently thought they had done more than their duty in answering Rice's letters. But as the Commission dryly observes, their answers to Rice's letters did not relieve him of the injurious consequences. In attempting to explain these things to the Interstate Commerce Commission, the agent of the railroad said: "If I have not made myself clear, I--" "You have not," one of the Commission interrupted.[410] The refusal to give Rice these rates was an "illegal refusal," the Commission decided; "the obligation to give the rates ... was plain and unquestionable." This general freight agent was summoned by Congress to tell whether or not lower rates had been made to the oil combination than to their competitors. He refused to produce the books and papers called for by the subpoena. He had been ordered by the vice-president of the road, he said, to refuse. He declined to answer the questions of the committee. Recalled, he finally admitted the truth: "We gave them lower rates in some instances."[411]