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This is only a start but it indicates to us there is a hell of a lot to be done, to be thought out - a lot of intensive study and organized thinking and investigating to be done and if it is done (and we have the talent to do it) great improvement in our business may result.

Neil Donovan met me at the train and we went up to the office where Roy Goggin showed me a letter from Gus Munster requesting a 43 ton demonstration on the B&M as a result of my report. So Roy and I cooked up a letter to Waller requesting one. As it turned out later in the day, the present 43 ton was sold today to the Wabash, so that leaves it open to build a good one for the B&M according to the new layouts.

Then Rudy Krape called me and wanted me at Portland tomorrow for a test on the Alco. 600 to determine tonnage rating from Yd-8 to Rigby. So Neil and I started out about noon for Portland, stopping at Newburyport at the Wolfe Tavern for lunch. It was a fascinating old place, built about 1800 and established in 1762, with many hand carved antiques etc. and named for my old favorite, Gen'l Wolfe, conqueror of Quebec.
 
At Portland we looked up Ripetto and made a date to go out to his place this evening. We drove up through Hampton and Rye beaches south of Portsmouth but it was too misty to see the Shoals. However, the rock formations along the shore at Rye Beach might have been at Shoals and brought it all back to me very clearly. Portsmouth itself looked so very familiar. Ah, those were the days! They can never be again but I don't regret; they led to what I have now and all in all, it is very satisfactory.

At Portland, we had a couple of ales in Donahue's saloon, a famed hole-in-the-wall sort of joint