The Trainmasters by Jesse Taylor Croft Read Free Book Online Page A

waiting
     restlessly for Edgar Thomson to return. Her father was not only the chief engineer of the Pennsylvania line, he was a member
     of its board of directors. He and the other directors of the line were attending a dinner meeting that evening. And Kitty
     was most interested in finding out what had gone on there, for the dinner meeting was vital to the railroad’s immediate future.
     It was the primary reason for the presence in Philadelphia this day of the financiers William Astor, Daniel Drew, and Cornelius
     Vanderbilt.
    The Pennsylvania needed money—a lot of it, at least five million dollars—in order to complete the mountain division. In the
     past, the state of Pennsylvania and the cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh had provided the major part of the capital the
     line required. In consequence, the state and the cities owned nearly half of the railroad’s outstanding stock. But that source
     of capital was almost spent. The state and the cities had invested in the line to the limit of their revenues.
    This meant that William Patterson, the railroad’s president, had to find other sources of capital. So far, at his direction
     the line had issued sixty thousand new shares of stock. But there had been few takers. If these shares didn’t sell quickly,
     or if some other source of funds was not found, then work on the mountain division would have to be halted.
    On the other hand, if William Patterson failed in his efforts to bring in new capital, the board of directors would surely
     have to replace him. And his most likely successor was John Edgar Thomson.
    Kitty believed that William Patterson was cheerful, amiable, and agreeable, but weak. He was more suited in her mind to preside
     over church functions and civic banquets than to run a precarious—and exciting—new enterprise. He placated government officials
     with skill and finesse; he was a pleasant companion at gatherings of the Philadelphia business community; and he struck a
     nice pose when necessary, but he was not ruthless enough for Kitty Lancaster, nor ferocious enough in his ambition. He was
     more interested in being liked and respected than in planting the Pennsylvania’s rails across the mountains and making the
     resulting line the richest and most powerful one on the continent. He was not, in short, anything close to the man her father
     was.
    So if he failed and was thrown out, Kitty would be quite pleased. She wanted her father to become the president of the Pennsylvania
     Railroad.
    Kitty was dressed for bed, wearing a robe over her sleeping gown. The day’s excitement had exhausted her, yet she was instantly
     wide awake when her father finally arrived home. It was after midnight.
    Edgar Thomson smiled broadly when he saw that she had waited up for him. He was delighted to have companionship after the
     trying board meeting. Edgar Thomson adored Kitty Lancaster. He had no friend better than Kitty. Their was no one who could
     give him greater comfort, or who could heal his wounds as she could.
    In her entire life she had only failed him three times: she had been born a woman; she had married Charles Lancaster, a man
     who at first had looked promising, but who turned out to be weak and lacking in ambition; and for a time, she had let herself
     fall in love with a man who had hurt her. This relationship had come not long after Charles’s death, and perhaps that explained
     why it happened at all. But, to Edgar Thomson’s immense relief, the relationship had fortunately ended, for the man was an
     employee of the railroad.
    Thomson stood in the doorway of the parlor before entering the room. He waited there until Kitty noticed him.
    “Hello, Father,” she said, finally looking up from her book.
    “Hello, Kitty,” he said. “You waited up for me?”
    “I couldn’t sleep tonight. Not with all that is going on.”
    She made a move to turn down the lamp that was on the table beside her chair, but Thomson raised his hand to stop