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gentlemen and in 14 inch aisles, they are pretty well compressed. "Smithy" said after the button incident, they took Andrews in, pointed to the narrow aisles and said in effect, "Take an ax in there and slash that god damn stuff down!" But I guess it was all in fun as it is necessary to reckon the available space down to the cubic inch to pack the stuff in there at all.

Perk told me an amusing incident of his Pittsburgh trip last week. He had quoted Joe Bryan on a 40 and a 55 ton locomotive for J.&L. at about $28,500 and $30000 each respectively, the difference being only for ballast, the two locos. being identical otherwise! Joe Bryan, on his own hook, cut the price of the 40 ton to $25000 leaving the 55 ton at $30000 and quotes J&L this way, and Perk didn't know it. So Perk goes into a conference with about a dozen strange J&L men, and they ask him what the difference between the two locomotives are and Perk explains it is nothing but ballast. "So!" they say, "You fellows expect us to pay you $5000 for 30000 pounds of ballast! We'll buy the 40 ton and hang it on ourselves!" And Perk was in a hell of a fix, for they kept harping on that throughout the remainder of the conference and Perk couldn't say anything much under the circumstances as Bryan wasn't at the conference.

Perk had quite a set-to with Maurice this morning because Everson, IGE, called Maurice to give him the requisition number for the 4 Paulista locomotives, and Maurice talked about five minutes with him while Perk sat there and fumed. Before Maurice finished, he asked Perk if he had anything for Everson. Perk: "Yes. Tell him [[underlined]] I'm [[/underlined]] handling this job!"

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