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fact, sometimes he'd make me boil so that I felt like telling him to go lump the job, obviously the most ridiculous thing I could have done under the circumstances. But his sort of crudity had always inflamed me and made me mad and resentful clean through. However, the next time Andy would meet you after one of these incidents, he'd be very likely just as charming as he was capable of being at times, and I'd forget all about it. My conclusion was that really he was a great boss but only human like the rest of us, and responsive to worries and pressures which made him blow off steam this way.
   An interesting little item of this period is the fact that the AIEE paper on three-power locomotives was selected to be published in the GE REVIEWS, the technical monthly put out by the Company and highly regarded in engineering circles. So, while nothing had ever come of my desires to produce fiction, I'd made considerable progress in the non-fiction field. Fred and I were getting some real mileage out of this 3-power paper in particular. And, while I don't think that I perceived it at that time, my writing flair was proving valuable as an added talent which probably made at least some small contribution toward allowing me to hang onto my job when many others were falling by the wayside as we now approached the deepest part of the Depression.
   The last of March and early April found me swamped with work while the stock market plunged deeper. Actual business continued to wane, there were rumors of further upsets in the organization, and no one knew what to expect next. I was working on my thyratron report for Andy and brought work home every night in an effort to keep on top of things. On March 28th another R-2 locomotive burned up to add a little spice as well as unwanted complaint expense to the situation. I had to spend a lot of time on this including lengthy arguments with Maurice on the origin of this fire. Aaron Nelson of Locomotive Engineering and I claimed the grids were responsible while Maurice laid it to shorts in the wiring. I had a half dozen technical articles I'd have enjoyed working on but couldn't find time. By letting most everything else slide and working at home at night, I completed the thyratron report April 7th. How it was received by Andrews & Co. my diary fails to say.
   I got a small change of pace during all this when Bill Legett of our Cleveland Office escorted to Erie a Mr. McKinney of the Erie Railroad who was intent on interesting us in developing an accurate accelerometer for measuring locomotive horsepower by an acceleration method. This wasn't the kind of business we were looking for and it pretty obviously wouldn't pay us to do it except to please Mr. McKinney. So we tried to please him in other ways--by being very polite to him and giving him an extended tour of the plant, buying his lunch, and showing interest in his project but without commitments. We'd have wined and dined him afterward but he and Bill took off for home late in the afternoon and I went back to work.