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Berwick, Pa.
Tuesday, Dec. 19, 1939.
The train was 15 minutes late so I got a break and was called at 3:45 AM! The usual early breakfast at Scranton, the puddle jumper to Berwick and long, inward cursing of Walter Hedley to have let me know so late after I had told him repeatedly to let me know early in the day so I could go via Pittsburgh. And in my mind, I was wondering if Walter was en route to Buffalo. So I was not much surprised at what transpired.
Met Walter and Ed O'Dare at the hotel at 9 AM - both had breaths that would nearly knock you down - they had got to bed "early" last night like good boys. Walter said he had to leave at noon to get back to N.Y. because he had solemnly promised to take his children X-mas shopping tomorrow, and Ed, who had driven from N.Y. would drive him to Wilkes Barre to catch the train. The funny thing is that Ed was then proceeding to drive on to N.Y. himself and there is no eastbound train anywhere near noon - only the Black Diamond westbound. Also Walter was [[underline]] very insistent [[/underline]] that I should stay over this time, entertain the ACF boys this evening so that tomorrow they would let their hair down for me. I thought, "You damn fool - whom do you think you're kidding?" Furthermore Walter warned me we should say nothing about pending negociations in New York to get information but only act as if we were here on legitimate business following up our quotations.
So we proceeded to ACF and had a talk with Stevens, Asst. Chf. Engr., who asked Walter if he wasn't staying over and Walter told him the same touching story about the children and the shopping.